16 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



and Salt Lake City. Of course, an intelligent European : 

 the best judge of these matters. The truth is, there ai 

 more singing-birds in Europe because there are fewer forest 

 These songsters love the neighbourhood of man becaus 

 hawks and owls are rarer, while their own food is moi 

 abundant. Most people seem to think, the more trees th 

 more birds. Even Chateaubriand, who first tried th 

 primitive-forest-cure, and whose description of the wildernej 

 in its imaginative effects is unmatched, fancies the &quot; peop] 

 of the air singing their hymns to him.&quot; So far as my ow 

 observation goes, the farther one penetrates the sombt 

 solitudes of the woods, the more seldom does he hear th 

 voice of any singing-bird. In spite of Chateaubriand 

 minuteness of detail, in spite of that marvellous reverben 

 tion of the decrepit tree falling of its own weight, which h 

 was the first to notice, I cannot help doubting whether h 

 made his way very deep into the wilderness. At any rat( 

 in a letter to Fontanes, written in 1804, he speaks c 

 mes chevaux paissant d, quelque distance. To be sur 

 Chateaubriand was apt to mount the high horse, and thi 

 may have been but an after-thought of the grand seigneui 

 but certainly one would not make much headway on horse 

 back toward the druid fastnesses of the primeval pine. 



The bobolinks build in considerable numbers in a meadow 

 within a quarter of a mile of us. A houseless lane passe 

 through the midst of their camp, and in clear wester! 

 weather, at the right season, one may hear a score of ther 

 singing at once. When they are breeding, if I chance t 

 pass, one of the male birds always accompanies me like 

 constable, flitting from post to post of the rail-fence, with : 

 short note of reproof continually repeated, till I am fairl 

 out of the neighbourhood. Then he will swing away int 

 the air and run down the wind, gurgling music withou 

 stint over the unheeding tussocks of meadow-grass and dar] 

 clumps of bulrushes that mark his domain. 



We have no bird whose song will match the nightingale 

 in compass, none whose note is so rich as that of tin 

 European blackbird; but for mere rapture I have neve 



