BIRD-SONGS. 



Why do birds sing ? Has their music a mean- 

 ing, or is it all a matter of blind impulse ? Some 

 bright morning in March, as you go out-of-doors, 

 you are greeted by the notes of the first robin. 

 Perched in a leafless tree, there he sits, facing 

 the sun like a genuine fire-worshiper, and sing- 

 ing as though he would pour out his veiy soul. 

 What is bethinking about? What spirit pos- 

 sesses him ? 



It is easy to ask questions until the simplest 

 matter comes to seem, what at bottom it really 

 is, a thing altogether mysterious ; but if our robin 

 could understand us, he would, likely enough, 

 reply : — 



" Why do you talk in this way, as if it were 

 something requiring explanation that a bird 

 should sing ? You seem to have forgotten that 

 everybody sings, or almost everybody. Think 

 of the insects, — the bees and the crickets and 

 the locusts, to say nothing of your intimate 

 friends, the mosquitoes I Think, too, of the frogs 



