Song Birds and Water Fowl 
like an echo of sweet song upon the ear, or a 
pleasing memory on the heart. These sound- 
less tones of Nature, springing from the ground, 
are quite as exquisite as those that stream 
from all the merry throng that glance in air, 
or hover in the overshadowing woods. What 
still, sweet lives the flowers live; like rare, 
pure souls that spread their own calm round 
them as they journey through the world. Some 
of our simplest blessings are in reality the best 
of all; and Nature, as she voices herself here 
and there in the unobtrusive flower or bird, of- 
ten speaks a heart-language unheard in many 
of her loftier utterances. A message is con- 
fided to the ‘‘ oaten reed’’ that the full-voiced 
organ never can declare. ‘The carol of the 
sweet and humble bluebird surely fills a niche 
that must inevitably stand vacant in the im- 
posing presence of the thrush’s grander song, 
just as a beautiful humility shines in the lowly 
violet that rivals the magnificence of the rose. 
Many of our commonest songsters are like the 
oaten reed, the pastoral, and violet, singing 
their way into the inconspicuous crevasses of 
life; the earlier waves in the sea’s incoming 
tide, that fill the lower clefts along the shore. 
In this same spot, too, one finds a magnifi- 
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