1 2 Spring 



licity their monstrous home, one of the most easily 

 harried of all ; while the carrion-crow sometimes 

 builds beside them, and sometimes on the outskirts 

 of the rookery. And if these interest you not, the 

 sweetest and most beautiful of all song birds are also to 

 be found the bullfinch in the thicket, the goldfinch 

 in the hedge. 



HOME 



WITH adequate knowledge it would be interesting to 

 resolve how far man's stubborn and invincible love 

 of home extends into the lower forms of life. Such 

 a tangle of sentiment and hysteria has grown up about 

 and over ' my ain countree ' and ' the little house 

 where I was born,' that a deep and touching emotion 

 has been all but drowned in a flood of worse than 

 idle tears. It is as old as time, and that it is as 

 enduring as nature is shown by its persistence to the 

 very portals of death ; 



As if the quiet bones were blest, 

 Among familiar names to rest. 



The joyful gleam in Sir Walter's dying eye as 

 on his last home-coming he caught sight of ' Gala 

 Water-Buckholm-Torwoodlee,' proved that he struck 

 no false note when he made his minstrel turn his last 

 hopes to a death by Teviot ; nor was it any remnant 

 of superstition that induced Carlyle to choose a grave 

 in Ecclefechan. The institution of family vaults 



