Mr. Stork and Miss Heron (page 178)

The Curious Book of Birds

By Abbie Farwell Brown

With Illustrations
By E. Boyd Smith

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1903

Published October, 1903.

There are many books written nowadays which will tell you about birdsas folk of the twentieth century see them. They describe carefully thesinger's house, his habits, the number of his little wife's eggs, andthe color of every tiny feather on her pretty wings. But these bookstell you nothing at all about bird-history; about what birds have meantto all the generations of men, women, and children since the worldbegan. You would think, to read the words of the bird-book men, thatthey were the very first folk to see any bird, and that what they thinkthey have seen is the only matter worth the knowing.

Now the interesting facts about birds we have always with us. We canfind them out for ourselves, which is a very pleasant thing to do, or wecan take the word of others, of which there is no lack. But it is thequaint fancies about birds which are in danger of being lost. Thelong-time fancies which the world's children in all lands have beentaught are quite as important as the every-day facts. They show what thelittle feathered brothers have been to the children of men; how we havecome to like some and to dislike others as we do; why the poets havecalled them by certain nicknames which we ought to know; and why a greatmany strange things are so, in the minds of childlike people.

Facts are not what one looks for in a Curious Book. Yet it may be thatsome facts have crept in among the ancient fancies of this volume, justas bookworms will crawl into the nicest books; but they do not belongthere, and it is for these that the Book apologizes to the children. Ithas no apology to offer those grown folks who insist that facts, neverfancies, are what children need.

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