THE BIRDS OF THE GARDEN. 



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four-footed beast being the subject of such. Or, again 

 conceive an amorous quadruped pouring forth his passion 

 in song. Every detail connected with birds and bird life 

 illustrates the same thing. The art displayed in the nests 

 in which they are cradled is as far beyond the thoughts of 

 an average brute as the aesthetic advancement evidenced 

 by the colours in which they are arrayed. Mr. Ruskin 

 might be satisfied with the lives which birds lead. This 

 superiority of bird over beast is admitted by the very way 

 in which we use the words bestial and brutish. No man 

 thinks of vilifying another by calling him birdish. But if 

 it were not so evident as it is, I think there are a priori 

 reasoHs for expecting the bird mind to be of a purer caste 

 than that of the brute. The brute grovels above the 

 ground, and the range of its vision is bounded by the 

 grass and bushes among which it pokes its way. It leads 

 a low earth-bound existence ; it is a serf a hereditary son 

 of the soil. The bird upon the trees, or soaring in the 

 sky, feeds its eye on the glories of the world stretched 

 beneath it, and is constantly the subject of all those im- 

 perceptible but potent influences of scenery and free air 

 which make the man of the mountains a being of higher 

 thoughts and prouder traditions than the man of the plains 



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