110 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 
the devoted pair de li Oe ey in spite of owls 
and hawks, squirrels and weasels, small boys 
and full-grown odlogists, they have finally 
reared a brood of offspring! The long uncer- 
tainty and the thousand perils only intensify 
the joy. In truth, so far as this world is con- 
cerned, the highest bliss is never to be had 
without antecedent sorrow ; and even of heaven 
itself we may not scruple to say that, if there 
are painters there, they probably feel obliged 
to put some shadows into their pictures, 
But of course (and this is what we have been 
coming to through this long introduction), — of 
course our friends of-the air are happiest in the 
season of mating; happiest, and therefore most 
attractive to us who find our pleasure in study- 
ing them. In spring, of all times of the year, 
it seems a pity that everybody should not turn 
ornithologist. For “all mankind love a lover ;” 
and the world, in consequence, has given itself 
up to novel-reading, not knowing, unfortu- 
nately, how much better that réle is taken by 
the birds than by the common run of story- 
book heroes. 
People whose notions of the subject are de- 
rived from attending to the antics of our im- 
ported sparrows have no idea how delicate and 
beautiful a thing a real feathered courtship is. 
To tell the truth, these foreigners have asso- 
- ee oe 
