yey BIRDS. 
cession in the suburbs of a Marylaad city. A sparrow 
with a very marked peculiarity of song I have heard 
several seasons in my own locality. But the birds 
do not all live to return to their old haunts: the bobo- 
links and starlings run a gauntlet of fire from the 
Hudson to the Savannah, and the robins and meadow- 
larks and other song-birds are shot by boys and _ pot- 
hunters in great numbers, —to say nothing of their 
danger from hawks and owls. But of those that do 
return, what perils beset their nests, even in the most 
favored localities! The cabins of the early settlers, 
when the country was swarming with hostile Indians, 
were not surrounded by such dangers. The tender 
households of the birds are not only exposed to hos- 
tile Indians in the shape of cats and collectors, but to 
numerous murderous and bloodthirsty animals, against 
whom they have no defense but concealment. They 
lead the darkest kind of pioneer life, even in our gar- 
dens and orchards, and under the walls of our houses. 
Not a day or a night passes, from the time the eggs 
are laid till the young are flown, when the chances are 
not greatly in favor of the nest being rifled and its 
contents devoured, — by owls, skunks, minks, and 
coons at night, and by crows, jays, squirrels, weasels, 
snakes, and rats during the day. Infancy, we say, is 
hedged about by many perils ; but the infancy of birds 
is cradled and pillowed in peril. An old Michigan 
settler told me that the first six children that were born 
to him died ; malaria and teething invariably carried 
them off when they had reached a certain age; but 
other children were born, the country improved, and 
by and by the babies weathered the critical period, 
and the next six lived and grew up. The birds, too, 
would no doubt persevere six times and twice six times, 
