XIX. 



THE SECRET OF THE WILD ROSE PATH. 



"Shall I call thee Bird, 

 Or but a wandering Voice ? " 



WORDSWORTH'S lines are addressed to the 

 cuckoo of the Old World, a bird of unenviable 

 reputation, notorious for imposing his most 

 sacred duties upon others ; naturally, therefore, 

 one who would not court observation, and whose 

 ways would be somewhat mysterious. But the 

 American representative of the family is a bird 

 of different manners. Unlike his namesake 

 across the water, our cuckoo never or so 

 rarely as practically to be never shirks the 

 labor of nest-building and raising a family. He 

 has no reason to skulk, and though always a shy 

 bird, he is no more so than several others, and 

 in no sense is he a mystery. 



There is, however, one American bird for 

 whom Wordsworth's verse might have been 

 written ; one whose chief aim seems to be, re- 

 versing our grandmothers' rule for little people, 

 to be heard, and not seen. To be seen is, with 



