The Birds’ Calendar 
have lost their peculiar springtime potency— 
he has passed the meridian, the shadows are 
beginning to fall more slantingly, and the 
year’s maturity and decline draw on apace. 
It is difficult to prove one’s assertions or de- 
nials that birds think this or that, but it seems 
most reasonable to accept their actions as a 
valid interpreter of their thoughts. 
In the quiet and desultory life they are lead- 
ing in the coming weeks, although devoid of 
the characteristics displayed in migration and 
nidification, one may still study them with 
much interest, and with the assurance of find- 
ing their individualities becoming ever clearer 
to his mind. If further acquaintance some- 
times reveals disagreeable qualities, we can 
only take things as they are, for better or for 
worse, the bitter with the sweet, remembering 
that though the thistle has its sting, it has its 
fragrance too, and that the better qualified any 
class of objects in nature is to be a type of 
man, the more we must expect to find the re- 
production of his evil traits as well as of his 
good ones. 
This paves the way for some rather dam- 
aging remarks concerning the catbird, against 
which no overt act of criminality has ever 
194 
