AUTUMN VISITORS. 149 
barn, where the swallows have free and fearless access 
to them, he will regard them more leniently. So much 
easier is it to awaken a sentiment in some men’s minds 
by a barrel of kraut or a boiled dinner than by exhibiting 
the grace and beauty and music and innocence of all the 
birds in the world. 
Birds left unmolested usually return in the spring to 
their old haunts, and we could look upon their departure 
for a season with less sorrow, if we knew more of them 
~ would be spared to return; but we know their journey 
will be attended by danger from cold and lack of food ; 
they will be assailed by beasts, and most of all by man, 
the most insatiate of all the beasts of prey; they will. 
be shot and trapped by scores and thousands—some for 
the beauty of their plumage—but more as an article for 
food. Think of twenty thousand bobolinks shot in one 
town and exposed for sale as an article of food—these 
birds of song, that have filled the air with their sweet 
melody, in orchard and meadow, cheering the hearts of 
so many people. It is well that the children in their 
rural homes cannot witness this wholesale murder of the 
innocent. 
Probably next to the bobolinks, the robins suffer most 
from these rapacious ghouls. How can a man or woman 
eat such a bird, knowing what music was hushed, what 
affections stilled, what loss of life and keen enjoyment 
were forever blotted out of existence, that one palate 
might receive a moment’s gratification. 
Miss Thatcher tells us of the bluff old gentleman at a 
public dinner table, who, on being told that “robins 
