10 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



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 flavor of raw 

 vermin "? I throw myself upon a jury of my peers. 

 Ask any robin if he ever ate anything less ascetic than 

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

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

 such depravity 1 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 re- 

 member how omnivorous he is, eating his own weight in 

 an incredibly short time, and that Nature seems exhaust- 

 less 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 cheer- 

 fulness and kind neighborhood than many berries. 



For his cousin, the catbird, I have a still warmer re- 

 gard. 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 unin- 

 terruptedly during the evenings of early summer till 

 twilight duskened into dark. They differ greatly in 

 vocal talent, but all have a delightful way of crooning 



