one, like Gilbert White, being cheered by his 

 twitter or interested in his doings. Perhaps it 

 is because we have so many brighter, sweeter 

 birds about us here ; or perhaps our chimneys 

 are higher than those of Selborne Rectory ; or 

 maybe we have no Gilbert White over here. 



Of course we have no Gilbert White. We 

 have not had time to produce one. The union 

 of man and nature which yields the naturalist 

 of Selborne is a process of time. Our soil and 

 our sympathy are centuries savager than Eng- 

 land's. We still look at our lands with the 

 spirit of the ax ; we are yet largely concerned 

 with the contents of the gizzards of our birds. 

 Shall the crows and cherry-birds be extermi- 

 nated*? the sparrows transported*? the owls and 

 hawks put behind bars? Not until the col- 

 lectors at Washington pronounce upon these 

 first questions can we hope for a naturalist who 

 will find White's wonders in the chimney- 

 swallow. 



These little swifts are not as attractive as 



song-sparrows. They are sooty — worse than 



sooty sometimes ; their clothes are too tight for 



them ; and they are less musical than a small 



[132] 



