shearing motion of the peculiar bills of these birds. 

 Surely here is an adaptation to definite ends. Nature 

 produces a cone that cannot readily be opened, 

 and, as if relenting, produces a bird to open it. 

 The wings of the seeds come zigzagging to the 

 ground as the feast continues overhead — all that 

 is destined to be planted. 



The lumbermen come into the woods with the 

 crossbills, and everywhere is heard the winter 

 music of the ax. It is good music enough, but it 

 has a sinister purport, and the swish and boom of 

 falling trees is a sad refrain. Ancient pines are laid 

 low, singing to the last their brave and beautiful 

 song, which seems to come, not diredtly from 

 overhead, but remotely from the empyrean^ as 

 though it issued from the distant Court of the 

 Winds. Of the pantheon of trees the village elm 

 is the last to hold our homage ; we have dethroned 

 our idols. As the sound of the ax breaks the still- 

 ness, I find myself instindtively turning in the 

 opposite direction, to escape that which is soon to 

 follow — the swan-song of the forest primeval. 



163 



