I. 



BABY BIRDS. 



"Ears have they, but they hear not," may 

 be said of all the world. Tragedies and come- 

 dies go on continually before us which we nei- 

 ther see nor hear ; cries of distress and prattle 

 of infants, songs of love and screams of war, 

 alike fall upon deaf ears, while we calmly dis- 

 cuss the last book or the news from Borriboo- 

 lah-Gha, as completely oblivious as if all this 

 stirring life did not exist. 



To be sure these things take place in the 

 "upper stories," as Thoreau says, but they are 

 none the less audible, and one is tempted to be- 

 lieve that bird voices are on a scale to which 

 the untrained ear is not attuned. Once learn 

 to hear, and nature is full of life and interest. 

 The home affairs of our little neighbors whose 

 modest cottage swings on a branch of the elm 

 beside the door are more attractive than those 

 of our fellow creatures in the house across the 

 way partly because they are so open in their 



