Song Birds and Water Fowl 



another writer has voiced the same sentiment 

 in more modern phrase, when he said, 



" From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray. 

 From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, 

 Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky." 



Observe the different obligations of these two 

 insects. Bees survive the winter, and need to 

 lay up a moderate store for the unfruitful days 

 to come ; yet even this does not call for their 

 excessive hoarding of treasure. But how per- 

 fectly ridiculous for a butterfly, that commonly 

 dies soon after depositing its eggs, or, if it lives 

 through the winter, merely hibernates, and 

 whose acquisitions could be of no possible avail 

 to its descendants, which, like itself, are but 

 the creatures of a summer's day — ^how absurd 

 for this ephemeral being to make itself a drudge, 

 toil early and late, and eat the bread of sorrow. 



We are commonly very much prejudiced in 

 favor of any creature whose habits directly con- 

 duce to our own interests. If honey happened 

 to be sour and unpalatable, instead of deUcious, 

 with what contempt should we probably regard 

 the bee's miserly disposition. We should then 

 use him to point a very severe moral, instead of 

 adorning a very handsome tale. Solomon, who 

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