50 BIRD-SONGS. 
heard-of, and is even mistaken for a grasshop- 
per. 
How true it is that the very things which 
dishearten one nature and break it down, only 
help another to find out what it was made for! 
If you would foretell the development, either 
of a bird or of a man, it is not enough to know 
his environment, you must know also what 
there is in him. 
We have possibly made too much of the sa- 
vanna sparrow’s innocent eccentricity. He fills 
his place, and fills it well ; and who knows but 
that he may yet outshine the skylark? ‘There 
is a promise, I believe, for those who humble 
themselves. But what shall be said of species 
which do not even try to sing, and that, not- 
withstanding they have all the structural pecul- 
larities of singing birds, and must, almost cer- 
tainly, have come from ancestors who were 
singers? We have already mentioned the 
house sparrow, whose defect is the more mys- 
terious on account of his belonging to so highly 
musical a family. But he was never accused of 
not being noisy enough, while we have one 
bird who, though he is classed with the oscines, 
passes his life in almost unbroken silence. Of 
course I refer to the waxwing, or cedar-bird, 
whose faint, sibilant whisper can scarcely be 
thought to contradict the foregoing description. 
