Song Birds and Water Fowl 



of this rustic specimen of arborescence, not by 

 looking back six thousand years, nor by looking 

 forward too far into its degenerating future, but 

 by simply enjoying what it has to offer of flower 

 or fruit from day to day. 



This bubbling wren, so joyously carolling 

 upon an apple-bough in a fair day in May, 

 will fittingly be the last in all this group of 

 songsters — a scene as simple as can be imag- 

 ined, and yet full of the three most salient 

 aspects of Nature's spirit — restfulness, activity, 

 and joy — one of those many scenes in life 

 whose impress is as lasting as the occurrence 

 itself is transitory, and which will perhaps be 

 remembered long after the tiny creature is ex- 

 tinct that was the soul of it; possibly even 

 after the tree itself shall have reached a fruit- 

 less, sour old age, and been cut down. 



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