Elliott Coues

“ The 'timber-line' of a mountain is the edge of the woods, above which no trees grow, and we see nothing but bare rocks, and the few low plants that cling to the cracks among them. Well, we had hardly rested long enough to get our breath after such a climb, when we heard a rich ringing song, something like a House Wren's, but louder and stronger, and very quick, as if the bird were in a great hurry to get through. ”

“ Well, that's the Hummer's nest!"
"Oh! oh!" cried Dodo, forgetting to whisper, "I see a mite of a tail and a sharp needle beak sticking over the edge!"
This was too much for Mrs. Hummer, who flew off with a whirr like an angry little spinning-wheel—if such a proper Puritan thing is ever angry; and there in the nest were two tiny eggs, like white beans.
"Come back by the fence and watch," said Joe. "She doesn't like to leave the nest much when it is toward night."
"It's a pity her mate is dead. How lonely she must be!" ”

“ Let us pay tribute to the gifted poet who taught us to contrast the insignificance of a fact with the sublime signification of a truth. No one may imagine for a moment that the imaginative faculty is an imaginary thing, or doubt the reality of imagination, because it is immaterial and immeasurable, inscrutable to the physical senses, unsusceptible of analysis or synthesis, triable by no test, overriding logic, outwitting philosophy, laughing at science—this imperious mistress of mind, this fertile mother of all art! ”

“ Then, what would not be the advantages the United States would reap from the event! Our numerous vessels would fill every port, and our vicinity would enable us to carry off at least nine-tenths of her commerce; even on the coast of the Pacific no European nation could vie with us. There would also be a brisk inland trade carried on with the Spanish provinces via Red river; and having a free entrance into all their ports, we should become their factors, agents, guardians—in short, their tutelar genius; as they fear but hate France and all French men and measures. ”

“ All through the spring and all through the autumn birds take these mysterious flights—for so they always seem to House People, as flock after flock gathers and disappears. You can watch them sometimes passing by day so high in the sky that they seem like dust-motes—then perhaps you will only hear a faint call-note and see nothing. At night the sound of many voices falls from the clouds. Sometimes it will be the tinkling bell of Bobolinks, sometimes the feeble peep of Snipes, and sometimes the hoarse honk of Wild Geese. ”

“ Had Great Britain yielded to the storm with grace and dignity, she would have secured our gratitude, ancient prejudices, and affections in her favor; on the contrary, by a long and arduous conflict, the murder of thousands of our citizens, the destruction of our country, the profanation of our altars, and the violation of every right, divine and human, she implanted in the breast of the Americans an antipathy approaching nearly to horror, a desire of revenge almost hereditary ”

“ I will not weary you with over-nice formalities of definition in a case where shades of difference blend. Know, by their fruits, that fancy is a parody on imagination. The play of fancy is quips and quirks and airy nothings, and the whole mob of littlenesses we call smart and clever. The working of imagination breathes life into marble and canvas, inspires the drama, the poem, the symphony, and vivifies systems of religion.
What faculty but the imaginative can conceive, what but the power of the imagination itself can convey, the full meaning of this soul of genius? It is creative ”

“ In early autumn some species sing for a time, and in warm climates there is more or less music all winter; but the great morning and evening chorus belongs to spring and the nesting season. It is as rare to hear the perfect song of a bird in autumn, as it is to see its perfect plumage. The young birds of the season are then swelling their little throats in trying to warble a few notes; and as their feathers are a mixture of those worn by their father and mother, such birds and their songs will both, most likely, confuse you. ”

“ From the foregoing statement your Excellency will observe that I yet possess immense matter, the results of one year's travel in countries, desert and populated, which have both been long the subject of curiosity to the philosopher, the anxious desires of the miser, and the waking thoughts and sleeping dreams of the man of ambitious and aspiring soul—results which, in our present critical situation, I do conceive to be immensely important, and which open a scene for the generosity and aggrandizement of our country, with a wide and splendid field for harvests of honor for individuals. ”

“ The measure of creative ability is the measure of accountability for its exercise, and the measure of the penalty which perversion of the godlike faculty entails. Like every other energy in Nature, the imagination is equally potent for good and for evil. Let the bravest man tell me he never shudders when he looks within, at the possibilities there disclosed. There is power to make this earth seem nearer heaven or hell. Whose rebellious imagination conceived it were better to reign below than to serve above? Sound is as full of discord as of harmony. Light may blind us, or guide us on our way. ”

“ The Redstart is the dancing Warbler, just as the Chat is the joker. He never flies along in a sober, earnest fashion, as if his business was of real importance. When on the ground he skips and hops, then takes a few short steps and a little dance backward. In the trees, where he also feeds and where in some crotch he lashes his pretty nest of leaf-stalks, moss, and horse-hair, he moves about as suddenly as can be imagined, and he has a way of flying up and backward at the same time that makes him a very confusing bird to watch. ”

“ At present, education is almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of the power of expression and of the sense of literary beauty. The matter of having anything to say beyond a hash of other people's opinions, or of possessing any criterion of beauty, so that we may distinguish between the godlike and the devilish, is left aside as of no moment. I think I do not err in saying that, if science were made the foundation of education, instead of being, at most, stuck on as a cornice to the edifice, this state of things could not exist. ”

“ When the nesting season is over, however, this Heron again becomes the night watchman of the marshes. The tinkling of the bell on the home-going cow is his breakfast bell, and sunset the signal for him to leave his roost. Then beware! little fishes and lizards—those red eyes are glowing for you! That long spear-shaped beak is ready to stab you to death! Froggy 'who would a-wooing go,' return quickly to your mother, without making any impertinent remarks about 'gammon and spinach' on the way, or something much more savage than the 'lily-while duck' will surely gobble you up! ”

“ The operation of the imagination unconscious of labor is better known by another name—inspiration; its expression is revelation; its mouth-piece the seer. But rare clay, and only the finest, incases such spirits; men must work in the storm, in sorrow and suffering, each to his measure of creative ability. Let us never forget, in the terrible struggle for expression, that it is given to lips which press the sword of pain to speak to fellow-men the words "Go thou up higher!" ”

“ To-morrow I will begin by answering Dodo's questions whether a bird is an animal, and why it has feathers."
"I think a bird is something like a boat," said Rap eagerly. "When it flies its wings are like sails in the air, and when it swims its feet row under the water, and the tail balances behind like a rudder and the head sticks out in front like the bowsprit." ”

“ I have seen a hundred of their holes in a single bank, all dug by these industrious little Swallows with no other tools than their feeble beaks and claws. When the young from these nests are learning to fly the old birds are darting to and fro all day long to teach them how to use their wings, and the bank seems like a bustling village; every bird has something to do and say, and they always try to do both at once. ”

“ Yet this Titan is not omnipotent; its powers are limited; and it is precisely at the point where reason hesitates that the office of imagination begins. The higher faculty takes up the story when reason omits to point the moral, and adorns the tale that Nature tells to man. It brings her seeming discords into one grand harmony, and crowns the noble shaft of Science with the immortal wreath of Art. ”

“ But as you study birds you will soon see that each one has his own place in the procession, and usually keeps it. Year by year this vast procession goes on in the air, back and forth, night and day, like the ceaseless ebb and flow of the tides at sea. Bird-waves flow on forever, in their appointed times, and none of Nature's aspects are more regular or more unfailing. ”

“ I roam all over North America, wherever there is open country and free flying, and make my nest on the ground wherever I find tufted grass or reeds to hide it. Marsh lands please me best, and so I am called the Marsh Hawk. The voices of the Hawk Brotherhood are like the voices of the winds, far-reaching, but not to be put in words. Mine is one of the softest of the cries of the Wise Watchers. Some brothers take their pastime in the skies, but I keep near the ground, in search of the things I harry—mice and other small gnawing animals, insects, lizards, and frogs. ”

“ But they were not selfish, and instead of being jealous felt a great respect for Rap.
"Now," said the Doctor, "we will see what a good neighbor to House People a bird is, and how in working for himself he helps them also."
"How can birds possibly work to help people?" asked Dodo and Nat together; but Rap smiled to himself as if he knew something about the matter, and said, "They eat the bugs and worms and things that kill the gardens and fields."
"You are right again," said the Doctor heartily. "What is one thing that man and every other animal must have to keep him alive?" ”

“ The trim Thrushes and Sparrows, who are all brownish birds, and find their insect or seed food on or near the ground, build open nests low down in trees and bushes, or on the earth itself; but the gorgeous Baltimore Oriole, with his flaming feathers, makes a long pocket-shaped nest of string and strong plant fibres, which he swings high up in an elm tree, where it cannot be reached from below, and the leaves hide this cradle while the winds rock it. He knows that it would never do to trust his brilliant feathers down by the ground. ”