BIRDS AROUND OUR DWELLINGS. 141 



There is no danger that, for many years to come, our 

 lands will be so entirely stripped of their native growth 

 of herbs, trees, and shrubs, as to leave the birds without 

 their natural shelter. But there is danger that they may 

 be wholly driven out of particular localities, and that 

 the inhabitants may thereby be deprived of the presence 

 of many delightful warblers. In all the densely popu- 

 lated districts, the want of them would be the more 

 painfully felt, because they contain a greater number of 

 cultivated people who can appreciate these blessings of 

 nature. Let us then proceed in our inquiry concerning 

 the means by which we may multiply the birds around 

 our habitations. 



In every locality in which all the native species of 

 birds are abundant, we find the following conditions : — 

 First, there is a large proportion of cultivated land, nu- 

 merous and thrifty orchards, extensive, fields of grass 

 and grain, all well provided with watercourses. When 

 these conditions are present, the familiar birds already 

 named will be numerous. If these cultivated lands are 

 intermingled with pastures abounding in thickets and 

 wild shrubbery, and all the indigenous undergrowth be- 

 longing to the same, we may then hear the voices of the 

 less familiar birds, which are in many respects superior 

 in song to the tenants of our orchards and gardens. 

 Wild shrubbery and its carpet of grasses, vines, mosses, 

 and other cryptogamous plants, form the condition that 

 is necessary to the preservation of the half-familiar 

 tribes. If, with all these circumstances, the land has a 

 good proportion of wood in its primitive state, or in 

 one resembling it, not divested of its undergrowth, con- 

 taining a large variety of oaks, maples, pines, junipers, 

 sumachs, and cornels, we may find the wood-thrush, the 

 hermit-thrush, the redstart, the oven-bird, the creeper, 



