112 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



insects that desolate the forests and destroy his har 

 vests; but this can be effected only by preserving the 

 birds. Nature has endowed them with an instinct that 

 leads them to congregate about his habitations, as if 

 she designed them to protect him from the scourge of 

 noxious vermin, and to charm his ears by the melody of 

 their songs. Hence every tract which is inhabited by 

 man is furnished with its native singing bird, and man 

 is endowed with a sensibility which renders the har 

 mony of sounds necessary to his happiness. The 

 warbling of birds is intimately associated with every 

 thing that is beautiful in nature. It is allied with the 

 dawn of morning, the sultry quiet of noon, and the 

 pleasant hush of evening. There is not a cottage in 

 the wilderness, whose inmates do not look upon the 

 birds, as the chief instruments of nature to inspire them 

 with contentment in their solitude. Without their 

 merry voices, the silence of the groves, unbroken save 

 by the moaning of the winds, would be oppressive ; the 

 fields would lose half their cheerfulness, and the forest 

 would seem the very abode of melancholy. Then let 

 our arms, designed only for self-defence, no longer 

 spread destruction over the plains ; let the sound of 

 musketry no longer blend its discord with the voices of 

 the birds, that they may gather about our habitations 

 with confidence, and find in man, for whose pleasure 

 they sing and for whose benefit they toil, a friend and a 

 protector. 



