long as cars run by overhead wires on wooden 

 poles. 



High-hole is a civilized bird. Perhaps " do- 

 mesticated " would better describe him ; though 

 domesticated implies the purposeful effort of 

 man to change character and habits, while the 

 changes which have come over High-hole and 

 over most of the wild birds are the result of 

 High-hole's own free choosing. 



If we should let the birds have their way 

 they would voluntarily fall into civilized, if 

 not into domesticated, habits. They have no 

 deep -seated hostility toward us ; they have not 

 been the aggressors in the long, bitter war of 

 extermination ; they have ever sued for peace. 

 Instead of feeling an instinctive enmity, the 

 birds are drawn toward us by the strongest of 

 interests. If nature anywhere shows us her 

 friendship, and her determination, against all 

 odds, to make that friendship strong, she shows 

 it through the birds. The way they forgive 

 and forget, their endless efforts at reconcilia- 

 tion, and their sense of obligation, ought to 

 shame us. They sing over every acre that we 

 reclaim, as if we had saved it for them only ; 

 [56] 



