A Paradise of Birds 



hands. "Oh, what colors! Look at their 

 breasts, bonnie as roses, and at their necks 

 aglow wi' every color juist like the wonderfu' 

 wood ducks. Oh, the bonnie, bonnie creatures, 

 they beat a' ! Where did they a' come fra, and 

 where are they a' gan? It's awfu' like a sin to 

 kill them!" To this some smug, practical old 

 sinner would remark: "Aye, it's a peety, as ye 

 say, to kill the bonnie things, but they were 

 made to be killed, and sent for us to eat as the 

 quails were sent to God's chosen people, the 

 Israelites, when they were starving in the 

 desert ayont the Red Sea. And I must confess 

 that meat was never put up in neater, hand- 

 somer-painted packages." 



In the New England and Canada woods 

 beechnuts were their best and most abimdant 

 food, farther north, cranberries and huckle- 

 berries. After everything was cleaned up in the 

 north and winter was coming on, they went 

 south for rice, com, acorns, haws, wild grapes, 

 crab-apples, sparkle-berries, etc. They seemed 

 to require more than half of the continent for 

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