Go to the Birds, Thou Sluggard 



By Alexander Pope 



If the scriptural injunction, "go to the ant, thou sluggard," should be 

 changed to, "go to the birds, thou sluggard," I think a much more desirable 

 example of intelligent industr_v would be suggested for the sluggard to emulate. 

 To be sure, an ant is never still, but to the casual observer he does not seem to 

 accomplish much. Of course, the scientific observer knows what they actually 

 accomplish, but the ordinary person is inclined to agree with Mark Twain in his 

 conclusions about ants, which he arrived at after spending a great deal of time 

 observing them when "he had much better have been doing something else." If 

 I were going to suggest a model for the sluggard to emulate, I should stiggest any 

 one of our common birds after their young are hatched in the early summer. 

 They are examples not only of tireless activity, but of intelligent work. 



A pair of field-sparrows built their nest on my lawn this year, and when the 

 grass was cut the first time, with a scythe, being too long for the lawn-mower, the 

 man who cut it found this nest, and marked it with a twig, and very considerately 

 left a tuft of grass about two feet in diameter around it. As the summer residents' 

 cats had not yet arrived, these birds were able to raise their whole brood. These 

 industrious little workers were busy from daylight until dark, dropping insects 

 into the four gaping mouths, the male sharing the duties of providing food equally 

 with the female. One of the parents would fly off a short distance, and returning 

 with a tiny moth or fly, light on the twig and then pop down into the nest, reap- 

 pear immediately to allow its mate to contribute what she had gathered and 

 start oS again after more insects. As all the mouths of the hungry little brood 

 were opened to their fullest extent on the arrival of one of the old birds, it must 

 require something like memory for the parents to decide which mouth was ne.xt 

 in turn to be fed. 



Robins are another instance of unselfish devoticKi and tireless activity. All 

 day long they are on my lawn, hopping three or four feet, stopping a few seconds, 

 cocking their heads on one side to look for a worm that has incautiottsly allowed 

 its head or its tail, whichever it is, to protrude slightly above the ground, and hav- 

 ing seen one they seize and pull and tug until it is brought out entirely whole. 

 When I used to go fishing and dug worms for bait, I found the greatest difficulty 

 in getting a worm out whole, although half its length might be exposed, but a 

 robin can pull and tug and he never breaks it. How fortunate it is that human 

 beings don't require as much animal food in proportion as the robins ! During 

 this high cost of living it would be quite a strain on the head of a large family 

 to provide them with half a ton of beef, more or less, every day. 



Another industrious and indefatigable little worker for the sluggard to copy 

 as far as activity goes, but in no other way. is the English sparrow. He is certainly 

 unpopular and deservedly so, but there is no denying his capacity for work or his 

 indomitable perseverance. He is not an artistic builder or a desirable neighbor, 

 like his cousins, the field, vesper, chipping and song-sparrows, but he is no less a 



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