The Birds’ Calendar 
ing and restful aspect of permanence over the 
mutabilities of existence. 
Furthermore, in the prevalent distribution 
of their principal types, botany and ornithol- 
ogy insure to the student a comfortable home- 
feeling, wherever he may walk abroad, in the 
sense of old-time companionship. In the 
same zone, even continent answereth to conti- 
nent in identical and similar types, and one 
can never be utterly a stranger in a strange 
land, when he discovers on every hand the 
counterparts of forms and faces familiarized 
and endeared by the memories of early life. 
But the herbarium and the stuffed speci- 
mens! Good for bait, to catch the wandering 
interest of the novice. There is something de- 
pressing, almost melancholy, in these dead and 
withered specimens within brick walls, when 
one has seen their living, joyous confréres in 
their native haunts, the air laden with the fra- 
grant smells of earth in the dewy freshness of 
an early breeze, and has heard them sing 
‘** Their choicest notes in bush and spray, 
To gratulate the sweet return of morn.” 
What a pitiable travesty do we find in the con- 
trast of nature’s vital, melodious handiwork, 
Io 
