My Elm-Tree Oriole. 127 



Not a condor of the Andes could thrust my 

 door-step wrens into the shade, nor majestic 

 eagle lessen the glory of that darling of the 

 door-yard, the song-sparrow. I will not attempt 

 to explain it, but the fact stands unmoved and 

 immovable, birds, unlike all other forms of 

 animal life, do not weary us. We may wish, at 

 times, that they were not so noisy, yet his is a 

 brutal hand that would brush them aside. For 

 their many merits we readly overlook such a 

 trivial blemish as excessive loquacity. Think 

 of driving into the deserts all of our own species 

 that talk too much. Who of us would be left ? 

 The literature of the subject, ornithology, 

 covering thousands of pages and hundreds of 

 titles, has heretofore dealt with bird anatomy, 

 classification, and their habits, and only at rarest 

 intervals has a single word gone up in their de- 

 fence. Because some birds are fruit-eaters, 

 they are proclaimed destructive to our horticul- 

 tural interests ; because crows like very young 

 chickens, the poultry-men are up in arms ; and 

 so runs on this sickening twaddle through many 

 chapters. There has been too little said of the 

 other side, as is usual. What of the insects and 



