A TINY TILTER. 



What need is there to people the woods with 

 fairies, nymphs, diyads, and other fanciful beings, 

 when we may find so many real creatures that are 

 quite as interesting and beautiful ? Even at the 

 risk of making this monograph " top-heavy," as 

 my boys would say, and thus marring its symme- 

 try, I cannot refrain from quoting a passage from 

 Sidney Lanier, whose sentiment I am half-inclined 

 to endorse : 



" Much time is run, and man hath changed his ways, 

 Since Nature, in the antique fable-days, 

 Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays, 

 False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise. 

 The nymphs, cold creatures of man's colder brain, 

 Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was fain 

 Never to lave its love in them again." 



Fairy stories have their use. All of us like to 

 read them when they are well conceived and well 

 told ; but they should never lead us for a moment 

 to think that our woodlands are so sparsely in- 

 ns 



