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.

So, as it is cruel to kill the birds, and as they are not nearly so beautiful when they are dead as they are when they are alive, and as the world is full of tender-hearted women to love them and plead for them and to say, “Do not kill them,” perhaps you will wonder why it is that they are killed. I will tell you how it has come about. When Dame Nature had imagined all her beautiful birds, and then cut them out of that wonderful stuff of hers—the stuff of life—with her marvellous pair of scissors, she said to her eldest daughter—whose name is Truth—“Now I will leave them and go away for a little, for there are other places where I must imagine things and cut them out with my scissors.” Truth said, “Do not leave the birds, for there are men in the world with hard hearts and a film over their eyes. They will see the birds, but not their beauty, because of the film, and they will kill them because of their hearts, which are like marble or rock or stone.” “They are, it is true,” said Dame Nature, “and indeed it was of some such material that I cut them out. I had my reasons, but you would never understand them, so I shall not tell you what they were. But there are not only my men in the world; there are my women too. I cut them out of something very different. It was soft and yielding, and that part that went to make the heart was like water—like soft water. I made them, too, to have influence over the men, and I put no film over their eyes. They will see how beautiful my birds are, and they will know that they are more beautiful alive than dead. And because of this and their soft hearts they will not kill them, and to the men they will say, ‘Do not kill them,’ and my beautiful birds will live. Women will spare them because they have pity, and men because women ask them to. And to make it still more certain, see yonder on that hill sits the Goddess of Pity. She has come from heaven to help me, and has promised to stay till I return. It is from her that pity goes into all those hearts that have it, and because she is a goddess, she sends most of it into the hearts of women. Have no fear, then, for until the Goddess of Pity falls asleep my birds are safe.” “But may she not fall asleep?” said Truth. But Dame Nature had hurried away with her scissors, and was out of hearing.

As soon as she was gone, there crept out of a dark cave, where he had been hiding, an ugly little mannikin, who hated Dame Nature and her daughter Truth, and did everything he could to spite them both. Their very names made him angry. He was a demon, really, and ugly, as I say. But he did not look ugly, because nobody saw him. All that people saw when they looked at him was a suit of clothes, and this suit of clothes was so well made and so fashionable, and fitted him so well, that they always thought the ugly demon inside it was just what he ought to be. So, of course, as every one had different ideas as to what he ought to be, he seemed different to different people. One person looked at the clothes, and thought him quite remarkable, another one looked at them and thought him ordinary and commonplace, and so on. Only every one was pleased, because, whatever else he seemed, he always seemed just what he ought to be. So, when two people both found that he was that, they each of them thought that he looked the same to the other. Of course the clothes were enchanted, really, only nobody knew it, and if any one had been told that it was the clothes and not the demon inside them they were looking at, he would not have believed it. It was only Dame Nature and her daughter Truth who could look at those clothes and see the little demon inside them, just as he really was. That was why he hated them, and never liked to hear their names.

This ugly little demon crept up to the Goddess of Pity, who looked at the clothes and was not even able to pity him; and, when he saw that he had her good opinion, he began to repeat a sort of charm to send her to sleep, for he knew that when once the Goddess of Pity was asleep he might do whatever he liked.

These were the words of the charm:—

Under the influence of this drowsy charm—which, of course, had no meaning in it whatever—the Goddess of Pity began to nod, and nodded and nodded till, on the last line, she went fast asleep, with a pleased smile on her face.

Then the wicked little demon took from one of the pockets in the suit of clothes that charmed everybody two little bottles that contained two different sorts of powders, one hot like pepper, and the other cold like ice, but both of them so fine that they were quite invisible. He took a pinch of the hot powder which was labelled “Vanity,” and blew it upon the heads of all the women, and the instant it touched them they all looked pleased, and you could see that they were thinking only of how they looked, though they talked in a very different way. It was funny that they all looked pleased, because a great many—in fact, most of them—were plain, not pretty, and yet they looked pleased too, as well as the others. But, you see, it was all done by magic. Then from the other little bottle, which was labelled “Apathy,” the demon took a pinch of the cold powder and blew it on the women's hearts, and as soon as it fell on them they became frozen, so that all the pity that had been in them before was frozen, too. Frozen pity, you know, is of no good whatever. You can no more be kind with it in that state than you can bathe in frozen water. So now there was nothing but vanity in the women's heads, and no pity in their hearts, and as the Goddess of Pity was fast asleep, it was not possible for any more to be put into them until she woke up. Nobody could tell when that would be. Gods and goddesses sometimes sleep for a long time, and very soundly. Besides, you know, this was a charmed sleep.

So, now, what happened after the wicked little demon had behaved in this wicked way? Why, the women whose hearts he had frozen began to kill the poor, beautiful birds, those birds that Dame Nature loved so, and had taken such pains to keep alive. I do not mean that they killed them themselves with their own hands. No, they did not do that, for they had not enough time to go to the countries where the beautiful birds lived, which were often a long way off as well as being very unhealthy. You see they were wanted at home, and so to have gone away from home into unhealthy countries to kill birds would have been selfish, and one should never be that. So instead of killing them themselves the women sent men to kill them for them, for they could be spared much better, and if they should not come back they would not be nearly so much missed. And the women said to the men, “Kill the birds and tear off their wings, their tails, their bright breasts and heads to sew into our hats or onto the sleeves and collars of our gowns and mantles. Kill them and bring them to us, that you may think us even more lovely than you have done before, when you compare our beauty with theirs and find that ours is the greater. Let us shine down the birds, for they are conceited and think themselves our rivals. Then kill them. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill them.” Then the men, whose hearts had always been hard, and over whose eyes there was a film, went forth into the world and began to kill the poor, beautiful birds wherever they could find them. Everywhere the earth was stained with their blood, and the air thick with floating feathers that had been torn from their poor, wounded bodies. It was full, too, of their frightened cries, and of the wails of their starving young ones for the parents who were dead and could not feed them any more. For it is just at the time when the birds lay their eggs and rear their young ones that their plumage is most beautiful—most exquisitely beautiful—and it was just this most exquisitely beautiful plumage that the women, whose hearts the wicked little demon had frozen, wanted to put into their hats. They knew that to get it the young fledgling birds must starve in their nests. But they did not mind that now, their hearts were frozen and the Goddess of Pity was asleep.

So the birds were killed, and the lovely, painted feathers that had lighted up whole forests or made a country beautiful, were pressed close together into dark ugly boxes—or things like boxes—called “crates” (large it is true, but not quite so large as a forest or a country), and then brought over the seas in ships, to dark, ugly houses, where they were taken out and flung in a great heap on the floor. Soon they were sewn into hats which were set out in the windows of milliners' shops for the women with the frozen hearts to buy. You may see such hats now, any time you walk about the streets of London—or of Paris or Vienna, if you go there—for the Goddess of Pity is still sleeping, she has not woken up yet. There you will see them, and outside the window, looking at them—sometimes in a great crowd—you will see those poor women that the demon has treated so badly. There they stand, looking and looking, ravenous, hungry—you would almost say they were—longing to buy them, even though they have new ones of the same sort on their head. Ah, if they could see those birds as they looked when they were shot, before they were dressed and cleaned and made to look so smart and fashionable! If they could see them with the blood-stains upon them, the wet, warm drops running down over the bright breasts—perhaps onto the little ones underneath them—the poor, broken wings dragging over the ground and trying to rise into the air, through which they had once flown so easily, the flapping, the struggling! If they could see all this, and much more that had been done—that had to be done—before there was that nice, gay, elegant shop-window for them to look into, would it not be different then, would not the vain heads begin to think a little and the frozen hearts to melt? No, I do not think so, because of the ugly little demon in the correct suit of clothes. They would look in at the window and go in at the door still, and—shall I tell you something?—it would be the same, just the same, if all those bright feathers in every one of the hats had been stripped, not from the birds' but from the angels' wings. Those who could wear the one could wear the other, and if angels were to come down here I should not wonder if angel-hats were to get to be quite the fashion. Only first, of course, angels would have to come down here. I do not think they are so very likely to.

And the worst of it is that not only the pretty women wear the beautiful birds in their hats, but the plain ones do too, which makes so many more of them to be killed. If it was only the pretty women who wore them it would not be quite so bad, but the wicked little demon was much too clever to arrange it like that. He did not wish any of the birds to escape, and I cannot tell you how many millions of them would escape if only the pretty women were to wear their feathers.

But now, how are the birds to be saved—for we want them all to escape—and how are the women to be saved? That is another thing. You know it is not their fault. They were kind and pitiful till the wicked little demon blew his powder into their hearts. It is his fault. You may be angry with him as much as you like, but you must not think of being angry with the women. Indeed, you should be sorry for them, more even than for the birds, for it is much worse to be a woman with a frozen heart than to be a bird and be shot. Oh, poor, frozen-hearted women, who would be so kind and so pitiful if only they were allowed to be, if only the wicked little demon would go away, and the Goddess of Pity would wake up!

Then is there no way of saving them both, the poor birds and the poor women? Yes, there is a way, and it is you—the children—who are to find it out. Listen. It is so simple. All you have to do is to ask these women (these poor women) not to wear the hats that have feathers, that have birds' lives in them, and they will not do so any more. They will listen to you. There is nobody else they would listen to, but they will to you—the children. Perhaps you think that funny. Listen and I will explain it. When the wicked little demon blew his powder called “Apathy” into the hearts of the women, it froze them all up, as I have told you, but there was just one little spot in every one of their hearts that it was not able to freeze. That was the spot called Motherly Love, which every woman has in her heart, and which is the softest spot of all, if only a little child presses it—and especially if it is her own little child. So I want you—the little children who read this little book—to press that spot and to save the birds from being killed. Nobody can do it but you, nobody even can find that spot except you, but you will find it directly. And you are to press it in this way. Throw, each one of you, your arms round your mother's neck, kiss her and ask her not to kill the birds, not to wear the hats that make the birds be killed. And if you do that and really mean what you say, if you are really sorry for the birds and have real tears in your eyes (or at least in your hearts), then your mother will do as you have asked her, for you will have pressed that spot, that soft spot, that spot that even the wicked little demon, try as he might, could not freeze, could not make hard. And as you press it, the whole heart that has been frozen will become warm again, and the powder of the demon will go out of it, and the Goddess of Pity will wake up. You will do this, will you not? It is only asking, and what can be easier than to ask something of your mother? But you must make her promise. Never, never leave off asking her till you have got her to promise.

And if some of you have mothers who do not kill the birds, who do not wear the hats that have birds' lives sewn into them, well it will do them no harm to promise too. Then they never will wear them, and if they should never mean to wear them, they will be all the more ready to promise not to. Only in that case you might put your arms round the neck of some other woman that you have seen wearing those hats and kiss her and ask her to promise. And she will, you will have touched that spot because you are a little child, even though you are not her own little child. Perhaps you will remind her of a little child that was hers once.

Now I am going to tell you about some of the most beautiful birds that there are in the world, but you must remember that they are being killed so fast every day that, unless you get that promise from your mother very quickly, there will soon be no more of them left; as soon as she promises it will be all right, for of course it will not be only your mother who will have promised, but the mother of every other little girl all over the country, and as the birds were only being killed to put into their hats, they will be let alone now, for now no more hats like that will be wanted. No one will wear hats that have birds' lives sewn into them, any more.

So the beautiful birds will go on living and flying about in the world and making it beautiful, too. You will have saved them—you the children will have saved them—and no grown-up person will have done anything to be more proud about. I daresay a grown-up person would be more proud about what he had done, even if it was nothing very particular; but that is another matter.

Now we will begin, and as we come to one bird after another, you shall make your mother promise not to wear it in her hat.