ON BOSTON COMMON. 5 



infallibility. My own vision, by the way, is 

 reasonably good, if I may say so ; at any rate I 

 am not stone-blind. Yet here have I been per- 

 ambulating the Public Garden for an indefinite 

 period, without seeing the first trace of a field- 

 mouse or a shrew. I should have been in ex- 

 cellent company had I begun long ago to main- 

 tain that no such animals exist within our pre- 

 cincts. But the other day a butcher-bird made 

 us a flying call, and almost the first thing he did 

 was to catch one of these same furry dainties 

 and spit it upon a thorn, where anon I found 

 him devouring it. I would not appear to 

 boast ; but really, when I saw what Collurio 

 had done, it did not so much as occur to me to 

 quarrel with him because he had discovered in 

 half an hour what I had overlooked for ten 

 years. On the contrary I hastened to pay him 

 a heart-felt compliment upon his indisputable 

 sagacity and keenness as a natural historian ; 

 a measure of magnanimity easily enough af- 

 forded, since however the shrike might excel me 

 at one point, there could be no question on the 

 whole of my immeasurable superiority. And I 

 cherish the hope that my fellow townsmen, who, 

 as they insist, never themselves see any birds 

 whatever in the Garden and Common (their at- 

 tention being taken up with matters more im- 

 portant), may be disposed to exercise a similar 



