98 SYLVAN SECRETS. 



song just in time to gladden the ears of God'« 

 last and greatest creation ; that he struggled 

 through countless ages and awful changes in 

 order to fit himself for our entertainment. 

 Think what the avian race has endured since 

 first Archseopteryx felt the feathers begin to 

 bud in his arms ! What a long, slow, hesitat- 

 ing, faltering current of development, from a 

 scaly amphibian of the paleozoic time, up, 

 up, to the glorious state of the nightingale 

 and the mocking-bird ! I never see a brown 

 thrush flashing his brilliant song from the 

 highest spray of a tree without letting a 

 thought go back over the way he has come 

 to us, and I always feel that to protect and 

 defend the song-bird is one of man's clearest 

 duties. Indeed, nothing is better indicated 

 by the records of the ages than that beautiful 

 colors, rich fragrance, and bird-song were 

 made especially for us. There were no 

 flowers, properly .so called, in paleozoic 

 times. Amidst all the luxuriant vegetation 

 of fhe coal measures, not a fossil blossom is 

 found, nor do the rocks give up a single but- 

 terfly or other insect which was probably 

 highly or delicately colored. The ancient 

 birds (reasoning from analogy) were not gay- 

 feathered, and, as I have shown, were not 

 able to sing. But when man appeared the 

 world was ready for him ; the hills and the 

 valleys and the broad plains were covered 

 with verdure and bloom, and the air was rich 

 with perfume and resonant with bird-song, 

 He might have looked around scarcely able 

 to know whether the butterflies were winged 

 flowers, or the flowers vegetable butterflies. 

 All this great, riant, blooming, perfumed , 

 ^nusic-filled world was for him and his beau 

 tiful companion, Well might it be said that 



