WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



that a few decades ago was abundant almost at 

 his door. It has been much the same with wild 

 fowl and game birds. They have deserted their 

 ancient nesting-places within our borders for the 

 safer arctic heaths, or old and young have been all 

 but exterminated by gun and snare. Neverthe- 

 less, a large number of the smaller birds of our 

 woodlands and prairies, as I hope to show, have 

 been decidedly benefited by the advent of white 

 men. 



It is commonly observed that scarcely any small 

 birds are seen in the depths of a forest, but they 

 become abundant as one approaches the neighbor- 

 hood of settlements. Travellers through Siberia 

 know that they are coming near a village when they 

 begin to hear the voices of birds, which are absent 

 from the intervening solitudes. Every ornithol- 

 ogist has proved these facts in his own experience, 

 and explorers who go to uninhabited and primeval 

 regions have learned not to expect there the chorus 

 that greets their ears from the great army of song- 

 sters thronging the fields in populous countries. 



The song birds — the small denizens of our sum- 

 mer groves, pastures, and meadows — seem, then, 

 to recognize the presence of man's civilization as 

 a blessing, and have taken advantage of it, both 



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