Abstract
IN reviewing my child's book, “Beautiful Birds,” F. E. B., writing in your columns, says, “Why should he select the beautiful birds' only, and, by implication, condone the massacre of birds that have not that advantage?” The question is a misstatement of fact, which I hope you will allow me to show, though I can only do so by quoting myself. On the last page—which I daresay F. E. B. did not get to—there is this: “‘Mother, promise not to wear any feathers except the beautiful ostrich feathers that you look so lovely in?’ As soon as she has promised, then all the beautiful birds in the world (and that means all the birds, for all birds are beautiful) will be saved,” &c. (The italics are mine). This is the final promise and the goal to which I have been leading. May I ask F. E. B. whether, if he wished to arouse a child's interest and sympathies in any subject, he would choose the more or the less salient material to do it with?
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SELOUS, E. Beautiful Birds. Nature 65, 392 (1902). https://doi.org/10.1038/065392d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/065392d0
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