The Birds’ Calendar 
blem of stability and vigor, of dignity and 
grace, as it endures from generation to gener- 
ation, now haughtily and stiffly defying the 
blasts of winter, and again, in gracious and re- 
sponsive mood, gently swaying in the summer 
breeze. Hardly less criminal than the wanton 
extinction of animal life is the needless de- 
struction of one of these splendid growths, 
with its heritage of years and its beneficent 
mission. And when such a landmark of a cen- 
tury has been laid low by the lightning or the 
woodman’s axe, it excites a feeling akin to that 
with which we look upon a prostrate and life- 
less human form. 
How many human moods are symbolized by 
the trees: the weeping willow, the ambitious 
poplar, the mournful cypress, the courtly elm, 
the silent, thoughtful pine, the stern and 
rugged oak. Of all the trees, the poets seem 
to find the oak most picturesque and human ; 
distant, grand, defiant, like the eagle among 
the birds; angular and rigorous, a type of puri- 
tanism ; its brusque manners in sharp contrast 
to the suavity of the elm; a Carlylean tree— 
that sort of being whose friends are few, but of 
the strongest sort; asking no favors, but not 
unwilling after its grim fashion to do a kind- 
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