12 love's meinie. 



strange ; other birds have no such clear 

 objection to being shot, and really seem to 

 come to England expressly for the purpose. 

 And yet this blue-bird — (one can't say " blue 

 robin " — 1 think we shall have to call him 

 " bluet," like the cornflower) — stays in Sweden, 

 where it sings so sweetly that it is called "a 

 hundred tongues." 



II. That, then, is the utmost which the 

 lords of land, and masters of science, do for 

 us in their watch upon our feathered sup- 

 pliants. One kills them, the other writes 

 classifying epitaphs. 



We have next to ask what the poets, 

 painters, and monks have done. 



The poets — among whom I affectionately 

 and reverently class the sweet singers of the 

 nursery, mothers and nurses — have done 

 much ; very nearly all that I care for your 

 thinking of. The painters and monks, the 

 one being so greatly under the influence of the 

 other, we may for the present class together; 

 and may almost sum their contributions to orni- 

 thology in saying that they have plucked the 

 wings from birds, to make angels of men, and 

 the claws from birds, to make devils of men. 



