320 SUMMER. 



and when we take that in conjunction with the handsome 

 appearance and lively manners of this little bird, we 

 find such a union of beauty and utility as makes us 

 forget that those birds have no tuneful song. Neither 

 must we be too hasty in blaming or attempting to ex- 

 tirpate those birds which feed wholly or partially upon 

 the vegetables that we cultivate, and which increase in 

 the ratio of cultivation, for it may be that they are the 

 cheapest guardians that we could have, and they are 

 certainly guardians against evils which man could not 

 prevent, or in many cases remedy. 



But numerous and active as are the titmice and the 

 other tribes of our insectivorous birds, and valuable as 

 are their services throughout the year; so prolific are 

 the various races of insects, that those which would find 

 food in the winter and early spring, would be wholly 

 inadequate to reduce within safe bounds, the myriads 

 that people the summer atmosphere. The action of 

 the sun upon the different latitudes is, however, such, 

 that when the food of other insectivori begins to fail 

 in climes nearer the equator, the heat also becomes too 

 oppressive for their natures, and they come northward, 

 forming our summer birds, ranging themselves into 

 classes, as their nature adapts them for the land or the 

 margin of the water, the fertile field, or the wilderness, 

 the wood or the open country, the habitation of man, 

 or the depth of retirement; and as each of those 

 situations has its insects varying in kind, and in the 

 places of their retreat, and the means by which they 

 may be captured, there is a sort of natural classifica- 

 tion of our summer birds, according to the places to 

 which they resort ; and this, to a considerable extent, 



