Mbere tbe /lDocMng=birb Sings 



in which it builds are cut closer and closer 

 by the clanging mowing-machine, and 

 when the seeds it loves are not permitted 

 to ripen. Where do the quail find winter 

 shelter on our highly cultivated and 

 smoothly shorn farms? The food of the 

 wild pigeon is gone, and gone forever are 

 the countless hosts of pigeons. When I 

 was a child the beautiful and magnificent 

 log-cock was everywhere seen in the 

 woods of our country. Now it is rare, 

 save in a few remote wildernesses. Why ? 

 Because the rotten wood in which its food 

 is found has been long ago made into 

 heaps and burned by the sturdy men who 

 have caused farms and plantations to su- 

 persede the forests. 



In the old days of bramble tangles and 

 hazel thickets there were no frozen bevies. 

 Lately I have seen sixteen quails, stiff as 

 icicles, in a pitiful little cluster, where, all 

 unprotected, the zero weather had caught 

 them, as Tennyson has it, in its " frozen 

 palms." Then, the hungry hawks have 

 their will of birds where there is no thick 

 cover for them to hide in, and the farm- 

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