142 May The Bird-catcher. 



stream, whilst the living bait writhes in torture on his 

 hook. Agr fables momens ! Not for the birds, surely ! 

 not for the birds! And before quitting this subject let 

 me just observe how painfully the bird-catcher is con- 

 tinually reappearing in so great a writer as Buffon. He 

 never fails to give his readers instructions, in this line of 

 business, and generally tells them whether every little 

 bird is good to eat or not. Fancy eating a brace of 

 wrens, or of torn-tits ! It is true that we eat smaller 

 creatures still, shrimps, for example; and the Bur- 

 gundy vine-snail is both good and nourishing : but our 

 sentiments are not enlisted in their behalf. To my 

 feeling the most agreeable bit of information about bird- 

 catching that I ever gleaned from the great naturalist 

 of Montbard is, that the wren, from its extreme small- 

 ness, gets through the meshes of the finest nets and so 

 happily escapes. I wish all the other birds could do 

 likewise. 



The wonderful work of nest-building goes on with 

 immense activity in the spring. What a difference 

 there is in relation to this business between a human 

 couple and the wedded birds ! The human couple 

 either inherit a nest already made, generally without 

 the most remote conception of the labor it cost to 

 make it, or else they hire another nest without much 

 serious interest or affection ; but the bird and his wife 

 are their own masons, and also their own architects, 

 being usually more successful in this latter capacity 

 than the unprofessional human designer of habitations. 

 Or is it not more accurate to say of them that, strictly 



