1 6 ?Ti)e fattren's Storj. 



larger Plutonian cousin. His dusky shadow and 

 husky bass have a charm of their own, and har- 

 monize with the bleakness of early spring and 

 the somberness of late autumn. Apart from the 

 pestiferous English sparrow, the crow supplies 

 almost our only winter voice. I place him with 

 the black hellebore or Christmas-rose a very 

 good thing to have until there is something bet- 

 ter to take his place. The Ettrick Shepherd 

 should have substituted the crow-blackbird when 

 he said, " The crow is down in the devil's book 

 in round hand." I am glad to hear Phil Robin- 

 son say he should be reluctant to deny this bird 

 every one of the virtues ; and John Burroughs 

 exclaim : " I love him ; he is a character I would 

 not willingly miss from the landscape." 



The advance-guard of the robins has come, 

 behind its usual time, but their reception has 

 been too cold as yet to expect them to proclaim 

 their presence in an audible manner. For the 

 robins' silence the sparrows are doing double 

 duty. I shall have to set my long pole in mo- 

 ' tion again, and banish them from the front 

 verandas to those of my neighbors. Birds, it 

 is well known, will not endure being disturbed 

 from their roosts ; and one or two dislodgments 

 after nightfall will suffice to rout even the spar- 

 row, although he is so disgustingly numerous 



