BIRD-SONGS. 51 



By what strange freak lie has lapsed into this 

 ghostly habit, nobody knows. I make no ac- 

 count of the insinuation that he gave up music 

 because it hindered his success in cherry-steal- 

 ing. He likes cherries, it is true ; and who can 

 blame him ? But he would need to work hard 

 to steal more than does that indefatigable song- 

 ster, the robin. I feel sure he has some better 

 reason than this for his Quakerish conduct. 

 But, however he came by his stillness, it is 

 likely that by this time he plumes himself upon 

 it. Silence is golden, he thinks, the supreme 

 result of the highest aesthetic culture. Those 

 loud creatures, the thrushes and finches ! What 

 a vulgar set they are, to be sure, the more 's 

 the pity ! Certainly if he does not reason in 

 some such way, bird nature is not so human as 

 we have given it credit for being. Besides, 

 the waxwing has an uncommon appreciation 

 of the decorous ; at least, we must think so 

 if we are able to credit a story of Nuttall's. 

 He declares that a Boston gentleman, whose 

 name he gives, saw one of a company of these 

 birds capture an insect, and offer it to his neigh- 

 bor ; he, however, delicately declined the dainty 

 bit, and it was offered to the next, who, in 

 turn, was equally polite ; and the morsel actu- 

 ally passed back and forth along the line, till, 

 finally, one of the flock was persuaded to eat it. 



