CHAPTER XXII 
BIRDS AND THE FLOWER GARDEN 
Moke birds would frequent the flower garden if 
there were fewer cats and dogs roaming around. 
These much too numerous domesticated animals, 
because it is their nature, and children, because they 
are innocently unthoughtful, frighten away—if 
they do not kill—some of the birds that would be 
only too glad to call from time to time, and perhaps 
settle down for the summer. 
For one, there is that most sociable of spring’s 
harbingers—the song sparrow. He will come in 
February to stay until November, if you do not let 
him be frightened away. And he will sing the 
while, day after day, as if his very soul were in the 
doing of it for you. But you must give him a bit of 
nearby thicket wherein to let him hide a nest—or 
imagine that he is hiding it. Then he and his mate 
and their little ones will run around the garden and 
feel quite at home in every part of it. The catbird, 
who is a fine singer when he takes the notion, may 
also be persuaded to nest close by the garden if 
there is a higher thicket; he likes housekeeping in a 
bush of the common barberry. 
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