Beautiful Birds

CHAPTER I. Why Beautiful Birds Are Killed

Why Beautiful Birds are Killed

What beautiful things birds are! Can you think of any other creatures that are quite so beautiful? I know you will say "Butterflies," and perhaps it is a race between the birds and the butterflies, but I think the birds win it even here in England. Just think of the Kingfisher, that bird that is like a little live chip of the blue sky, flying about all by itself, and doing just what it likes. The Sky-blue Butterfly is like that too, I know, but then it is a much smaller chip, and does not shine in the sun in such a wonderful way as the Kingfisher does. Neither, I think, does the Peacock-Butterfly, or the Red Admiral, or the Painted Lady, or the Greater or Lesser Tortoise-shell; and, besides, they none of them go so fast. Yes, all those butterflies are beautiful, very, very beautiful. But now, supposing they were all flying about in a field that a river was winding through, and, supposing you were sitting there too, amongst the daisies and buttercups in the bright summer sunshine, and looking at them, and supposing all at once there was a little dancing dot of light far away down the river, and that it came gleaming and gleaming along, getting nearer and nearer and keeping just in the middle all the time, till it passed you like a sapphire sunbeam, like a star upon a bird's wings, then I am sure you would look and look at it all the time it was coming, and look and look after it all the time it was going away, and when at last it was quite gone you would sit wondering, forgetting about the butterflies, and thinking only of that star-bird, that little jewelly gem. But, perhaps, if you were to see a Purple Emperor sweeping along--ah, he is a very magnificent butterfly, is the purple emperor. You can tell that from his name, but whether he is quite so magnificent as a star-bird (for that is what we will call the Kingfisher)--well, it is not so easy to decide. The birds and the butterflies are both beautiful, there is no doubt about that, only this little book is about beautiful birds, and perhaps afterwards there will be another one about beautiful butterflies. That will be quite fair to both.

The birds, then! We will talk about them. I am going to tell you about some of the most beautiful ones that there are, and to describe them to you, so that you will know something about what they are like. But perhaps you think that you know that already because you have seen them, so that you could tell me what they are like. There is the star-bird that we have been talking about, and then there is the Thrush and the Blackbird. What two more beautiful birds could you see than they, as they hop about over the lawn of your garden in the early dewy morning? The Blackbird is all over of such a dark, glossy, velvety black, and his bill is such a lovely, deep, orangy gold. It would be difficult, surely, to find a handsomer bird, but the Thrush, with his lovely speckled breast, is just as handsome. Then the Robin with his crimson breast, and his little round ball of a body--what bird could be prettier? Or the Chaffinch, or Greenfinch, or Linnet? Or the Bullfinch, surely he is handsomer than all of them (except the star-bird), with his beautiful mauve-peach-cherry-crimson breast, and his coal-black head and nice fat beak, and that pleasant, saucy look that he has. Yes, he is the handsomest, unless--oh, just fancy! we were actually leaving out the Goldfinch. He has crimson on each side of his face, and a black velvet cap on his head, whilst on both his wings he has feathers of a beautiful, bright, golden yellow. I think he must be the handsomest, unless it is the Brambling, who is dressed all in russet and gold. And then there is the Yellow-Wagtail! Could one think of a prettier little bird than he is--unless one tried a good deal? To be a wagtail at all is something, but to be not only a Wagtail but yellow all over as well, that does make a pretty little bird! And I daresay you have seen him running about on your lawn, too, at the same time as the thrush and the blackbird. And there is another bird, one that you do not see running or hopping over your lawn, but flying over it, sometimes far above it, when the sky is blue and the insects are high in the air, sometimes just skimming it when it is dull and cloudy and the insects are flying low. You know what bird it is I mean, now--the Swallow. I need not say how beautiful he is.

So, as you have seen all these pretty birds, and a good many others too--at least if you live in the country and not in London--perhaps you think that there cannot be many, or perhaps any, that are so very much prettier. Ah, but do not be too sure about that. You must never think that because something is very beautiful there can be nothing still more beautiful. You may not be able to imagine anything more beautiful, but that may be only because your imagination is not strong enough to do it. It may be a very good imagination in its way, better than mine perhaps, or a great many other people's, but still it is not good enough. In fact there is not one of us who has an imagination which is good enough to do things like that. We could never have imagined birds which are still more beautiful than those we have been talking about. Indeed we could never have imagined those that we have been talking about. Only Dame Nature has been able to imagine them both.

She can imagine anything, and the funny thing is that as she imagines it, there it is--just as if she had cut it out with a pair of scissors. Perhaps she does do that. She is a lady--Dame Nature, you know--so she would know how to use a pair of scissors. But what her scissors are like and how she uses them and what sort of stuff it is that she cuts things out of, those are things which nobody knows. Only, there are the birds, not only the beautiful ones that you have seen, but a very great many others which you have never seen, and which are so very much more beautiful than the ones you have, that if you were to see those beside them, they would look quite--well no, not ugly--thrushes and blackbirds and swallows and robin-redbreasts could not look that--but insignificant--in comparison.

Now it is about some of those birds--the very beautiful birds of all, the most beautiful ones in the whole world--that I am going to tell you; but all the while I am telling you, you must remember that they--these very beautiful birds--do not sing, whilst our birds--the insignificant-looking ones--do. So you must not think poorly of our birds because their colours are plain or even dingy--I mean in comparison with these other ones--for if they have not the great beauty of plumage, they have the great beauty of song. And perhaps you would not so very much mind growing up plain, like a lark or a nightingale (which would not be so very, very plain), if you could sing like a lark or a nightingale--as perhaps one day you will.

Indeed, I sometimes wish that those very beautiful birds were not quite so beautiful as they are. You will think that a funny wish to have, but there is a sensible reason for it, which I will explain to you. Perhaps if they were not quite so beautiful, not quite so many of them would be killed. For, strange as it may seem to you--and I know it will seem strange--it is just because the birds are beautiful that hundreds and hundreds, yes, and thousands and thousands, of them are being killed every day. Yes, it is quite true. I wish it were not, but I am sorry to say it is. People kill the birds because they are beautiful. But is not that cruel? Yes, indeed it is, very, very cruel. It is cruel for two reasons: first, because to kill them gives them pain; and secondly, because their life is so happy. Can anything be happier than the life of a bird? Surely not. Only to fly, just think how delightful that must be, and then to be always living in green, leafy palaces under the bright, warm sun and the blue sky. For I must tell you that these birds we are going to talk about live where the trees are always leafy, where the sun is always bright and the sky always blue. So they are always happy. Even if a bird could be unhappy in winter--which I am not at all sure about--there is no winter there. Now the happier any creature is the more cruel it is to kill it and take that happiness away from it. I am sure you will understand that. If you were carrying a very heavy weight, which tired you and made you stoop and gave you no pleasure at all, and some one were to come and take it away from you, you would not think that so very cruel. You would have nothing now, it is true, but then all you had had was that weight, which was so heavy and made you stoop. But, now, if you were carrying a beautiful bunch of flowers which smelt sweetly and weighed just nothing at all, and some one were to take that away, you would think that cruel, I am sure. A bird's life is like that bunch of flowers. How cruel, then, it must be to take it away from any bird. We should think it very wrong if some one were to kill us. Yet it is not always a bunch of flowers that we are carrying.

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