FEATHERED FRIENDS 



OLD AND NEW. 



CHAPTER I. 



lue Robin. 



I HIS exceedingly pretty bird, Der Hiittensanger (the 

 cottage-singer) of the Germans, is a great favourite 

 where he is not too well known, for ,he has a few 

 faults which should, perhaps, be mentioned first, for to 

 give an account of his good qualities, and then begin 

 to depreciate him, would scarcely be fair; seeing that 

 people, as a rule, remember what they have last read 

 better than they do what went before, just as in a 

 controversy the latest speaker has a decided advantage 

 over his antagonist, a fact that often powerfully affects 

 a jury, as lawyers are very well aware. 



It is somewhat curious that fewer birds should be 

 imported from America than from South Africa or 

 Australia, for in the first case the passage is so much 



I 



