LETTER XXXVII. 



THE ENCROACHING VISITOR. 



Nothing less than my friend Edmond practising in the 

 garden, and who had just killed a beautiful blackbird. This 

 blackbird was, when alive, the leader of my band : I felt more 

 sorrow than I will venture to tell you when I saw him lying 

 on the ground, with his glossy black feathers stained with 

 blood. All the cares I had taken for several years that the 

 birds should find in my garden a sure and tranquil asylum 

 were rendered abortive by this firing of the gun, — the more so 

 from its appearing a kind of perfidy, a meditated murder. 

 In every part of the neighbourhood, the trees are cut down, 

 birds are taken in snares and traps, or shot with guns. Here 

 alone I have preserved large trees and thick bu^es ; here I 

 have multiplied service and holly-trees with their coral 

 berries, hawthorns with their garnet fruit, elders and privets, 

 which bear umbels of black berries, the burning-bush with 



Q 



