January 



the call-note of the robin. It is found in this 

 region the year round, but its presence in the 

 Park is chiefly during the cold weather. 



Birds easily adapt themselves to circum- 

 stances ; and, although I was brought up to 

 believe that I should never, under any con- 

 ditions, find doves alighting on trees, it is a 

 common sight in the Park : probably due to 

 the fact that there are scarcely any buildings in 

 the vicinity ; yet even such as there are they 

 studiously avoid, always flocking to the mai)les 

 and elms, as they were doubtless wont to do in 

 their predomesticated state. 



There is no virility about a dove : just a mass 

 of meat, feathers, and flabby good-nature ; too 

 inoffensive to be interesting ; for an object that 

 it is impossible to hate, it is impossible to love. 



As white is to black, so are doves to crows — a 

 rather favorite fowl of mine, though as common 

 as sin, of which it is a sort of winged symbol. 

 Coarse-fibred, harsh-voiced, and villainous as it 

 is, it is a broad and solid dash of color that 

 could be ill spared in the landscape. How 

 tersely and vividly descriptive those few words 

 of Shakespeare : 



" Light thickens, and the crow 

 Makes wing to the rooky wood ; " 



37 



