We had listened to the notes of the birds in the Thiergarten; but our mother, the tutor, the placards, our nice clothing, prohibited our following the feathered songsters into the thickets.  But in Keilhau we were allowed to pursue them to their nests.  The woods were open to every one, and nothing could injure our plain jackets and stout boots.  Even in my second year at Keilhau I could distinguish all the notes of the numerous birds in the Thuringian forests, and, with Ludo, began the collection of eggs whose increase afforded us so much pleasure.  Our teachers’ love for all animate creation had made them impose bounds on the zeal of the egg-hunters, who were required always to leave one egg in the nest, and if it contained but one not to molest it.  How many trees we climbed, what steep cliffs we scaled, through what crevices we squeezed to add a rare egg to our collection; nay, we even risked our limbs and necks!  Life is valued so much less by the young, to whom it is brightest, and before whom it still stretches in a long vista, than by the old, for whom its charms are already beginning to fade, and who are near its end.

I shall never forget the afternoon when, supplied with ropes and poles, we went to the Owl Mountain, which originally owed its name to Middendorf, because when he came to Keilhau he noticed that its rocky slope served as a home for several pairs of horned owls.  Since then their numbers had increased, and for some time larger night birds had been flying in and out of a certain crevice.

It was still the laying season, and their nests must be there.  Climbing the steep precipice was no easy task, but we succeeded, and were then lowered from above into the crevice.  At that time we set to work with the delight of discoverers, but now I frown when I consider that those who let first the daring Albrecht von Calm, of Brunswick, and then me into the chasm by ropes were boys of thirteen or fourteen at the utmost.  Marbod, my companion’s brother, was one of the strongest of our number, and we were obliged to force our way like chimney sweeps by pressing our hands and feet against the walls of the narrow rough crevice.  Yet it now seems a miracle that the adventure resulted in no injury.  Unfortunately, we found the young birds already hatched, and were compelled to return with our errand unperformed.  But we afterward obtained such eggs, and their form is more nearly ball-shape than that seen in those of most other birds.  We knew how the eggs of all the feathered guests of Germany were coloured and marked, and the chest of drawers containing our collection stood for years in my mother’s attic.  When I inquired about it a few years ago, it could not be found, and Ludo, who had helped in gathering it, lamented its loss with me.

CHAPTER XII.

Friedrich Froebel’s ideal of education.