XVI PROCEEDINGS. 



their young almost within reach of your hand. I like to see these swallow 

 boxes set up round country houses; they seldom fail to attract a pair of 

 tenants, and nothing is more pleasing than to hear their twittering song, 

 as they busily flit past the window, when awakening on a bright summer's 

 morning. 



Many other wild birds also chose these grounds for their family 

 residence. A pair of golden-winged woodpeckers have built in an old stump 

 close to the house for several seasons; robins' nests are met with every- 

 where ; last year a pair hatched two broods in a low fir bush by the side 

 of the glass-house; and in the shrubberies, close to the paths, mafny, 

 varietiees of warblers may constantly be seen throughout the summer 

 flitting to and from their closely-hidden nests. Nor is their confidence 

 misplaced. Downs may apply the words of our gentle-minded Cowper in 

 the " Winter Walk at Noon " : 



" These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, 

 Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, 

 Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarm'd 

 Sits cooing in the pine tree, nor suspends 

 His long love-ditty for my near approach." 



Sure of protection and ample fare, many migratory birds spend the 

 long, cheerless winter in these grounds. One of these late, cold, dull days, 

 by which the advance of the spring is this year so retarded, I heard the 

 first song-bird here, the joyous note of the song-sparrow emanating from 

 a thicket in the pheasant's enclosure. The little bird had been a guest 

 all winter. Blue-birds (Junco Tiiemalis] and robins also remain. The 

 latter are often seen during this season in many places in the neighbour- 

 hood. 



It is very satisfactory to see robins and all other small birds now 

 protected by law from being shot within the precincts of the city; whereas 

 formerly they were continually stalked and fired at, particularly in the 

 spring before mating, when the former birds hop over open grass-plots 

 from which the snow has disappeared, in search of worms, in large flocks. 

 Hard times do these appear for the early visitors, and many a buffeting 

 snow-storm and hard-binding frost drives them to the verge of starvation 

 before the new land flows for them with milk and honey, as the numbers 

 of dead robins found on the snow-covered fields in the very cold weather 

 of March, 1863, testified. Instead of cruel persecution, our small birds 

 are deserving of encouragement and protection. In England the long- 

 sustained suspicions of the farmer and the peasant as to the destructive- 

 ness of many species have been allayed, and every hedge-row is jubilant 

 with songsters; whereas in France scarce a bird is to be seen in many dis- 

 tricts, not only from their supposed noxious qualities, but from the com- 

 prehensive spirit of the term " la chasse " as pursued by French gunners. 



