Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. – Author unknown, quoted in The Ladies Repository: A Monthly Periodical, Devoted t

Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers – a living prismatic gem…. it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description. – W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions

Half the modern drugs could well be thrown out the window, except that the birds might eat them. – Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. – Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 1712