310 BIRDS OF THE FARM AND THE FARM-YARD. 



Turtle-Doves are now rarely seen in New England, but 

 they are common in other States. In this centre of en- 

 lightenment there is plenty of cant about mercy to birds 

 and other creatures ; there are whole encyclopaedias of 

 rhymes written about the " beautiful and innocent birds." 

 But the rhymes and the cant go hand in hand with the 

 snare, the gun, and strychnine ; as the Bible and mission- 

 aries sail lovingly together with rum and gunpowder, to 

 Africa and other regions of moral darkness, sent onward 

 by the same persons and the same funds. There may be 

 some desire in many hearts for the preservation of our 

 birds ; but it is with our sentimentalists as with our poli- 

 ticians, sentiment must give way to peas and strawberries 

 as principle must give way to party and personal ambition. 

 It is a remarkable fact that the possession of a single 

 cherry-tree or one bed of strawberries will turn the most 

 lachrymatory sentimentalist into a rabid exterminator of 

 the feathered race. 



THE COCK. 



I should be guilty of a great omission, if in my de- 

 scriptions of interesting birds I were to say nothing of the 

 common Cock, the true Bird of Morn in every country ; 

 the monitor who never fails to give the inmates of the 

 house notice of the dawn of day. So intimately is this 

 bird allied with the morning, that the dawn is always 

 designated as the hour of cock-crowing. If he should 

 cease hereafter faithfully to announce the earliest ap- 

 proach of day, we should look upon him as one who had 

 lost the most remarkable trait in his character. But, like 

 other birds that sing by night, he is often deceived by the 

 light of the moon, when it rises past midnight, mistaking 

 its beams for the promise of dawn. 



The Cock is a bird of the East, and is by nature ad- 

 dicted to Eastern customs and habits. He is furnished 



