214 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



Stirs a history unexpressed. 

 Wishes there, and feeling strong, 

 Incommunicably throng; 

 What they want wc cannot guess. 



This, as poetry, is good, but it does not pre- 

 cisely fit my case; my "compunctious visitings" 

 being distinctly different in origin and character 

 from the poet's. He — Matthew Arnold — is a 

 poet, and the author of much good verse, which 

 I appreciate and hold dear. But he was not a 

 naturalist — all men cannot be everything. And 

 I, a naturalist, hold that the wishes, thronging the 

 restless little feathered breast are not altogether 

 so incommunicable as the melodious mourner of 

 "Poor Matthias" imagines. The days — ay, and 

 years — which I have spent in the society of my 

 feathered friends have not, I flatter myself, been 

 so wasted that I cannot small my soul, just as the 

 preacher smalled his voice, to bring it within 

 reach of them, and establish some sort of passage. 



And so, thinking that a little more knowledge 

 of birds than most people possess, and considera- 

 tion for them — for I will not be so harsh to speak 

 of justice — and time and attention given to their 



