History: People watching birds move through the air must long ago decided that it was a free and easy life. It’s a pity one can not get the birds opinion, because in fact a bird works pretty hard most of the time getting food, building a nest, defending territory, feeding young, migrating and so on. Still the bird was symbolic of freedom as long ago as 1533, when John Heywood invoked it in A Mary Play between the Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and Neybour Pratte: ” As free As be the byrdes that in the ayre flee.”