98 BIRDS AND MAN 



Her face fell. She had never heard of the wood 

 wren, and when I pointed to the tree from which 

 the sound came and she listened and heard, she 

 turned away, evidently too disgusted to say 

 anything. She had been wasting her eloquence 

 on an unworthy subject — one who was without 

 appreciation for the sublime and beautiful in 

 nature. The wild romantic Lynn, tumbling 

 with noise and foam over its rough stony bed, 

 the vast wooded hiUs, the piled- up black rocks 

 (covered in places with beauiiful red and blue 

 lettered advertisements), had /been passed by in 

 silence— nothing had stirred me but the chirping 

 of a miserable little bird, which, for all that she 

 knew or cared, might be a sparrow ! When we 

 got down from the coach a couple of minutes 

 later, she walked away without even saying 

 good-bye. 



There is no doubt that very many persons 

 know and care as little about bird voices as this 

 l?,dy ; but how about the others who do know 

 and care a good deal — what do they think 

 and feel about the song of the wood wren ? I 

 know two or three persons who are as fond of 

 th^ bird as I am ; and two or three recent 



