CHAPTER IX. 



MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 



I DO not wonder that the world is full of superstition, and 

 that men talk vaguely, as if they were in a dream of the 



" Angels and ministers of grace" 



belonging to another sphere, when they know so little of the 

 divine realities of this ! 



How many of them, for instance, know anything of the 

 Thrush that present angel of the solemn woods ? I ven- 

 ture, there are not ten men out of a thousand, that call them- 

 selves intelligent, who can go into the woods with you of a 

 summer morning, and point out which is the Wood Thrush, 

 or tell you, amidst the choir, which strain belongs to it. 

 They may notice the right bird, but be sure they do not 

 know it as the Wood Thrush ; and they will give you some 

 other name as Wood Kobin, Ground Nightingale, &c.; but 

 even then, they will seldom fail to identify the notes for you 

 --and yet they have been hearing them unless they've 

 lived in cities all their live-long days, and feeling them too, 

 if they have any souls to feel with. It is one of the most 

 common song-birds we have in our woods is, literally, what 

 Wordsworth calls the little English Eobin, 



-a joy, 



A presence like the air ! 

 and yet I believe there is less correctly and generally known 



