CHAPTER III. 



THE MASTERS OF MELODY. 



IT is humiliating to think that we have no tame wild 

 birds, and yet we might have many. Thoreau 

 proved this while living in his Walden hut, and it has 

 been shown time and again that man, and not the 

 birds, is at fault. They are driven off, and man is the 

 driver. Now and perhaps it has been so always 

 there are too many farmers who complain if a robin 

 eats a cherry or the cat-birds raid the strawberry 

 beds. These are the men who too often rule in the 

 community, and between their greed and others' indif- 

 ference the birds that would otherwise crowd about 

 our door-yards are not only driven to the fields and 

 orchard, but persecuted even there. What nature 

 considerately gave to this country is rejected, and an 

 alien bird, a veritable outcast of featherdom, has 

 been received with open arms. A hundred English 

 sparrows perch upon the ridge-pole and creep be- 

 tween the slats of the closed shutters, and lucky are 

 we if, in winter, there is a single robin in the orchard. 

 A score of these sparrows will stand guard where the 

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