150 VIRGINIA 



without passing at least two or three. Some- 

 times as many as that would be within hear- 

 ing at once. They preferred the town to 

 the woods and fields, it was evident, and for 

 a singing-perch chose indifferently a fence 

 picket, the roof of a hen-coop, a chimney- 

 top, or the ridgepole of one of the churches, 

 — which latter, by the bye, were most un- 

 christianly numerous. The people are to 

 be congratulated upon having so jolly and 

 pretty a singer playing hide-and-seek — the 

 wren's game always — in their house-yards 

 and caroling under their windows. As a 

 musician he far outshines the more widely 

 known house wren, though that bird, too, is 

 excellent company, with his pert ways, at 

 once furtive and familiar, and his merry 

 gurgle of a tune. If he would only come 

 back to our sparrow-cursed Massachusetts 

 gardens and orchards, as I still hope he will 

 some time do, I for one would never twit 

 him upon his inferiority to his Bewickian 

 cousin or to anybody else. 



The city itself would have repaid study, 

 if only for its unlikeness to cities in general. 

 It had not "descended out of heaven," so 

 much was plain, though this is not what I 



