8 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



hundred singing like one. They are noisy enough then, and 

 sing, as poets should, with no afterthought. But when they 

 come after cherries to the tree near my window, they muffle 

 their voices, and their faint pip, pip, pop! sounds far away 

 at the bottom of the garden, where they know I shall not 

 suspect them of robbing the great black-walnut of its bitter- 

 rinded store.* They are feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure, 

 but then how brightly their breasts, that look rather shabby 

 in the sunlight, shine in a rainy day against the dark green of 

 the fringe-tree ! After they have pinched and shaken all 

 the life out of an earthworm, as Italian cooks pound all the 

 spirit out of a steak, and then gulped him, they stand up in 

 honest self-confidence, expand their red waistcoats with the 

 virtuous air of a lobby member, and outface you with an eye 

 that calmly challenges inquiry. Do / look like a bird that 

 knows the flavour of raw vermin ? I throw myself upon ajuryof 

 my peers. Ask anyrobiri if he ever ate anything less ascetic 

 than the frugal berry of the juniper, and he will answer that 

 his vow forbids him. 7 Can such an open bosom cover such 

 depravity ? Alas, yes ! I have no doubt his breast was 

 redder at that very moment with the blood of my raspberries. 

 On the whole, he is a doubtful friend in the garden. He 

 makes his dessert of all kinds of berries, and is not averse 

 from early pears. But when we remember how omnivorous 

 he is, eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, 

 and that Nature seems exhaustless in her invention of 

 new insects hostile to vegetation, perhaps we may reckon 

 that he does more good than harm. For my own part, I 

 would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighbourhood 

 than many berries. 



For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer regard. 

 Always a good singer, he sometimes nearly equals the brown 

 thrush, and has the merit of keeping up his music later in 

 the evening than any bird of my familiar acquaintance. 

 Ever since I can remember, a pair of them have built in a 

 gigantic syringa, near our front door, and I have known the 

 male to sing almost uninterruptedly during the evenings of 

 early summer till twilight duskened into dark. They differ 

 greatly in vocal talent, but all have a delightful way of 



* The screech-owl, whose cry, despite his ill name, is one of the sweetest 

 sounds in nature, softens his voice in the same way with the most beguiling 

 mockery of distance. 



