So loud, it wakened Robin Hood
In the greenwood where he lay."

It might almost be said that the birds are all birds of the poets
and of no one else, because it is only the poetical temperament
that fully responds to them. So true is this, that all the great
ornithologists--original namers and biographers of the birds--have
been poets in deed if not in word. Audubon is a notable case in
point, who, if he had not the tongue or the pen of the poet,
certainly had the eye and ear and heart--"the fluid and attaching
character"--and the singleness of purpose, the enthusiasm, the
unworldliness, the love, that characterize the true and divine race
of bards.

So had Wilson, though perhaps not in as large a measure; yet he
took fire as only a poet can. While making a journey on foot to
Philadelphia, shortly after landing in this country, he caught
sight of the red-headed woodpecker flitting among the trees,--a
bird that shows like a tricolored scarf among the foliage,--and it
so kindled his enthusiasm that his life was devoted to the pursuit
of the birds from that day. It was a lucky hit. Wilson had already
set up as a poet in Scotland, and was still fermenting when the
bird met his eye and suggested to his soul a new outlet for its
enthusiasm.

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A
bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense
is his life,--large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame
charged with buoyancy and his heart with song. The beautiful
vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and