AT THE BATH. 



HAVE you ever watched a canary going through 

 its morning bath ? The thoroughness of the 

 cleansing is only matched by the bird's enjoyment of 

 it. But there is as much more pleasure in seeing a 

 free bird go through its daily wetting and drying and 

 preening as there is in every other free act of a free 

 bird. 



Our little street gamins, English Sparrows, choos- 

 ing a mud puddle rather than go a little out of town 

 for a clean pool, are not worthy to represent the birds 

 of dainty ways. 



One of my pleasant bird memories is of a little 

 stream, hardly more than a handbreadth wide, flowing- 

 down a hill slope, from a spring in the neighborhood 

 of Saratoga, and making a little nest in the hollow of 

 a rock. I could almost have enclosed the brooklet 

 with my arms and measured its depth with my lead 

 pencil ; but for pretty sentiment, and the pleasure it 

 gave to the comers and goers at Elim, the summer 

 cottage of my friend, it will "go on forever." I could 

 fancy the birds saw from afar that single bright spot 

 on the steep hill — a jewel, dropped by a princess 

 of another world, with a ribbon on either side. 



