22 BIRDS. 



cession in the suburbs of a Maryland city. A sparrow 

 with a very marked peculiarity of song I have heard 

 several seasons in my own locality. But the birds 

 do not all live to return to their old haunts : the bobo- 

 links and starlings run a gauntlet of fire from the 

 Hudson to the Savannah, and the robins and meadow- 

 larks and other song-birds are shot by boys and pot- 

 hunters in great numbers, — to say nothing of their 

 danger from hawks and owls. But of those that do 

 return, what perils beset their nests, even in the most 

 favored localities ! The cabins of the early settler?, 

 when the country was swarming with hostile Indians, 

 were not surrounded by such dangers. The tender 

 households of the birds are not only exposed to hos* 

 tile Indians in the shape of cats and collectors, but to 

 numerous murderous and bloodthirsty animals, against 

 whom they have no defense but concealment. They 

 lead the darkest kind of pioneer life, even in our gar* 

 dens and orchards, and under the walls of our houses. 

 Not a day or a night passes, from the time the eggs 

 are laid till the young are flown, when the chances are 

 not greatly in favor of the nest being rifled and its 

 contents devoured, — by owls, skunks, minks, and 

 coons at night, and by crows, jays, squirrels, weasels, 

 snakes, and rats during the day. Infancy, we say> is 

 hedged about by many perils ; but the infancy of birds 

 is cradled and pillowed in peril. An old Michigan 

 settler told me that the first six children that were born 

 to him died ; malaria and teething invariably carried 

 them off when they had reached a certain age ; but 

 other children were born, the country improved, and 

 by and by the babies weathered the critical period, 

 and the next six lived and grew up. The birds, too, 

 would no doubt persevere six times and twice six times. 



