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keep down the excess of vegetation, are as much part of the 

 system of nature, as the birds which keep down insects, or 

 the magpies, jays, and hawks, which destroy eggs and kill 

 birds; but cultivation alters the case, because the surplus 

 which man takes must be something more than that which 

 satisfies the balancing of uncultivated nature ; and because 

 the birds assist in the preservation of that, they are fellow- 

 labourers with man, and deserve his gratitude and protection. 



When the summer visitants depart, there is a sort of pause, 

 which may be considered as the great annual breeding-time 

 of the insect tribes, though many of them perish in successive 

 generations during the season. There is a minor breeding- 

 time during the excess of the solstitial heat, when the birds 

 are silent and repairing their plumage, before they congregate 

 for their farewell feast. But the autumn is the grand time ; 

 and as the insects soon die after the eggs are safely committed 

 to Nature's keeping, the earth would be rank with the bodies 

 of dead flies, were it not for the labours of the autumnal 

 spiders ; just as it would be unsightly with rotting vegeta- 

 bles, but for the fungi of the same season. 



After the pause, those insectivorous tribes which remain 

 with us all the year, come home from the wilds. The little 

 wren sits on the Christmas log as it lies seasoning at the door ; 

 and the robin hops about at the threshold, turns up his eye as 

 if he actually expressed, " I know you ;" and hopping on the 

 bush, the last ripe leaf of which falls at the slight vibration, 

 he carols to us the parting song of the year, and continues it 

 till the dark days are over, and many wings are extended in 

 the south, wafting hitherward, when the labours of the robin 

 call him again to the wild. So delightfully do these birds 

 mark the year always changing ; and, taken with the other 

 circumstances, every change an improvement. 



