THROUGH NATURALISTS’ EYES.

Forest and Bird, Issue 24, 1 July 1931, Page 5

THROUGH NATURALISTS’ EYES.

H. W. Tamperley, writer of “English Scenes and Birds,” writes in reviewing “Wild Exmoor through the Year,” by E. W. Hendry: 1930:

“At their best the great nature-writers have never been content with natural history alone; they have not been satisfied with anything short of exact observation carried as far as each could carry it, but they have been compelled by something within themselves to go beyond the cold facts of observation. The facts are warm with life and are not strange to beauty when they have been seen and expressed through the imagination of a Jeffries, a Hudson, an Edward Thomas, or a Masingham. It is through them that we learn how real nature is, through them that we learn how to release our senses so that we, too, may enjoy her in our own ways. By discovering one bird, one flower, or one landscape through their eyes, we find ourselves discovering many through our own; and, more wonderful still, we begin to discover much that is new in ourselves.”

He quotes this paragraph from the book: “Beauty in birds —and, indeed, in all nature, allures us; but it is not for this alone that we seek them. Rather, their charm is a pane, dimmed in part, but yet spangled with brightness, through which shines the vision of that perfect beauty for which finer spirits have ever sought, and not entirely in vain.”