In God's Acre 85 



to be compelled to record that many of these visitors lost 

 their lives at the hands of the street boys. It is particularly 

 sorrowful to record this because the chances are that the owls 

 were doing their full duty in the matter of killing English 

 sparrows. 



Standing in Graceland cemetery at the height of the bird 

 concert season, and hearing ten songsters at once breaking 

 the silence of the place, I have wondered whether the birds 

 loved to hear themselves sing. I suppose that they would 

 make music for the world if they were as deaf as posts. I 

 have a reason for this supposition. It is some distance from 

 Graceland cemetery, Chicago, to Goat Island, Niagara River, 

 but I must go that far for my reason. Since New York state 

 has made a park of the island and has enforced rules for the 

 regulation of lawless visitors, the birds have gone back to the 

 place and have made of it their summer home. Goat Island 

 lies in the river on the brink of the precipice between the 

 American and the Canadian Falls. It is eternally deluged, as 

 one might say, with the roar of the waters. In places upon 

 Goat Island it is hard to make the human voice heard. The 

 season was a little late for the singing of the birds when I 

 visited the island in July. The song sparrow, however, sings 

 every month of the year, and one of these little fellows was 

 perched on the limb of a tree close to the great fall and was 

 trying to let the sight-seeing visitors know that he was sing- 

 ing a solo. The noise of the waters was thunderous. Birds 

 may have acute ears, but I doubt very much if that song 

 sparrow heard his own sweet strains. He was prompted to 

 sing, and sing he must, though the song was lost in the roar 

 of the falls. 



There is plenty of excuse for the visitor to Niagara, 



