BIRD-SONGS. 
—_—$—— 
Way do birdssing? Has their music a mean- 
ing, oris it alla matter of blindimpulse? Some 
bright morning in March, as you go out-of-doors, 
you are greeted by the notes of the first robin. 
Perched in a leafless tree, there he sits, facing 
the sun like a genuine fire-worshiper, and sing- 
ing as though he would pour out his very soul. 
What is he thinking about? What spirit pos- 
sesses him ? 
It is easy to ask questions until the simplest 
matter comes to seem, what at bottom it really 
is, a thing altogether mysterious; but if our robin 
could understand us, he would, likely enough, 
reply : — 
“ Why do you talk in this way, as if it were 
something requiring explanation that a bird 
should sing? You seem to have forgotten that 
everybody sings, or almost everybody. Think 
of the insects, — the bees and the crickets and 
the locusts, to say nothing of your intimate 
friends, the mosquitoes! Think, too, of the frogs 
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