Tenants of a Season. 7 



drive them from their accustomed haunts. It is strange 

 that any could be found to tear down the dainty fabric 

 and scatter its contents on the ground. But alas ! we 

 are all familiar with the birdsnester, who on mischief 

 bent strolls along the lane with a nest of gaping fledg- 

 lings in his hat and a string of birds' eggs in his hand. 

 He is a young barbarian, the aversion of the old ladies 

 of the parish. The parson has got his eye upon him. 

 He will come tc a bad end, after a career of depravity, 

 punctuated by ineffectual birchings, solitary confine- 

 ment, and the treadmill. 



But there is happily a birdsnester of a different 

 stamp altogether, upon whose conscious ear there 

 never falls the accusing plaint of the robin, or the 

 lament of the plundered song-thrush. The flycatcher 

 builds fearlessly in his trellis ; the very oriole might 

 trust her eggs within his reach. No bird that flies 

 will find an enemy in him. He delights to watch and 

 not to plunder ; he finds his pleasure among the living 

 rather than the dead. The tenants of the tangled 

 coppice are yeomen of his manor ; he is proud to 

 reckon on his list of friends a score of singers 



' Whose household words are songs in many keys 

 Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught ; 

 Whose habitations in the tree-tops even 

 Are half-way houses on the road to heaven.' 



