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ANYONE who has watched birds, studied them, given them the least attention, will find this a treat. It is a compilation of writings that celebrate the many ways people have engaged with birds – made companions of them, mythologised them, hunted and eaten them. There’s an account of a mocking thrush drinking from Charles Darwin’s hand on the voyage of the Beagle, and of a woman in Ohio who incubated 50 hens’ eggs by laying them alongside the body of her dying, fevered husband. This book is well worth buying for the illustrations alone.