BIRDS AROUND OUR DWELLINGS. 143 



rod from our dwellings these little birds may have their 

 nests, if the right conditions are there. They are com- 

 monly built on the side of a mound, where the grasses 

 and mosses are overrun with blackberry vines and wild 

 rose-bushes. Familiar as they are, they do not nestle 

 among exotics. He who would entice them to breed in 

 his inclosures must not be too particular in preserving 

 that kind of n^eatness in his grounds, which consists in 

 eradicating every native ghrub and wild briar, as a use- 

 less weed. 



Hedge-rows, though often ignorantly supposed to be 

 the nurseries of birds, are really great checks to their 

 multiplication. A hedge-row cannot be well maintained 

 without care in keeping its roots clear of grass and 

 other herbage, which are important to the birds ; and 

 the habit of clipping it renders it almost barren of fruit. 

 I am inclined to think that, for pleasing effects, no less 

 than for the benefit of the birds, the most desirable 

 fence is one made of rough small timber passed through 

 upright posts. I would then encourage the growth of 

 all kinds of native shrubbery, on each side of it, form- 

 ing a miscellaneous hedge, the more agreeable because 

 unshorn by art. It is this spontaneous growth of shrub- 

 bery and other wild plants that constitutes one of the 

 picturesque charms of the old New England stonewall. 

 We seldom see one that is not covered on each side, 

 more or less, with roses, brambles, spireea, viburnums, 

 and other native vines and shrubs, so that in some of 

 our open fields, the stonewalls, with their accompani- 

 ment of vines, flowers, and shrubbery, are the most 

 attractive objects in the landscape. Along the base of 

 these walls, where the plough does not reach, nature 

 calls out the rue-leaved anemone, the violet, the cranes- 

 biU, the bellwort, the delicate pink convolvulus, and 



