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A Short Passage on Birds     Since birds, like men, are largely diurnal creatures and share with us the familiar daytime world of colour and sound, our association with them is, not surprisingly, a long and intimate one. Man has always had a double interest in birds - on the other hand esthetic, personal, impractical; on the other, utilitarian. The latter has changed with the time and with the sum of human knowledge. Long ago, where superstitions and priestly cult were the "science" of the day, the flights of birds were carefully studied for omens, as were their entrails. For centuries man tried to probe the mysteries of flight. Although he never succeeded in duplicating the effortless, endlessly flexible aerial mastering possessed by birds, he does share with the air with them today. That leads inevitably to the problems of navigations and space travel, and we find ourselves turning to the birds again - for evidence in accumulating that they chart their courses, during migration, by the sun and stars. Would we learn anything about navigation from them? Conceivably, although it is likely that we would succeed only in developing something which, in comparison to the way the birds do it would turn out to be as crude and expensive and inflexible as a propeller-driven plane when compared to a feathered wing. Birds have helped men for thousands of years, from the geese whose warning cries saved Rome to the canaries that were used to warn coal miners of methane gas leakage. From research currently under way, there is some reason to believe that birds may continue to provide this kind of life saving service by warning us that the doses of chemicals and radioactive particles that we eat, drink, breathe and absorb day after day may be reaching dangerous levels. Truely, birds touch us in unexpected places. They are far more to us than ducks and pheasants to be shot, or chickadees and cardinals to brighten a suburban winter. This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page