A CHAT ABOUT PLANTS. 135 



material for building their ne'sts, and a well-protected home. 

 The eagle gathers the knotted branches of oaks or pines, 

 to bring up his fierce brood upon the hard, uncushioned 

 couch ; the thorn tears a handful of wool from the passing 

 sheep, for its tiny inhabitants, and the despised mullein 

 covers its broad leaves with the softest of downs, to line 

 the bed of the delicate children of the humming bird. 

 There is probably no bush and no tree, that has not its 

 own particular bird ; every where do the fowl of the air 

 find a foliage, thicker or thinner, to shelter them against 

 rain, heat and cold ; a hollow trunk affords safe and warm 

 lodgings ; soft moss carpets their dwellings, and insects 

 and worms swarm around, to offer, at the same time, food 

 in abundance. The birds give, in return, life and sound 

 to the immovable plant. Song birds of many kinds perch 

 and sing their beautiful anthems on eVery spray ; locusts 

 thrill their monotonous and yet pleasing note among a 

 world of leaves through long summer noons, and the katy- 

 did utters its shrill cry during sultry nights. They all 

 love their home, making it their dwelling by night and 

 by day, and many are the instances in which birds, that 

 had long lived in certain trees, have died from true sor- 

 row, when the latter were felled. 



Monkeys, also, it is well known, are frugivorous animals, 

 and by their food as well as by the peculiar structure 

 of their body, so closely bound to trees that they but 

 seldom leave them. The tree-frog clings to the rugged 

 trunk, mingling its faded colors with those of the bark, 

 and feasting upon the insects hid in each crevice. The 

 unsightly sloth fastens its enormous claws to the branches, 



