ON BOSTON COMMON. 



OUR Common and Garden are not an ideal 

 field of operations for the student of birds. No 

 doubt they are rather straitened and public. 

 Other things being equal, a modest ornitholo- 

 gist would prefer a place where he could stand 

 still and look up without becoming himself a 

 gazing-stock. But " it is not in man that walk- 

 eth to direct his steps ; " and if we are ap- 

 pointed to take our daily exercise in a city park, 

 we shall very likely find its narrow limits not 

 destitute of some partial compensations. This, 

 at least, may be depended upon, our disap- 

 pointments will be on the right side of the ac- 

 count ; we shall see more than we have antici- 

 pated rather than less, and so our pleasures will, 

 as it were, come to us double. I recall, for ex- 

 ample, the heightened interest with which I be- 

 held my first Boston cat-bird ; standing on the 

 back of one of the seats in the Garden, steady- 

 ing himself with oscillations of his tail, a con- 

 veniently long balance-pole, while he peeped 



