HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. Ill 



der them attractive, that man might thereby be induced to preserve a race 

 of creatures so necessary to his pleasures, and so valuable to his interest. 



There are two methods of preserving the birds ; the first consists in omit- 

 ting to destroy them ; the second in promoting the growth of certain trees, 

 shrubs and other plants on which they depend for shelter and subsistence. 

 The birds considered in relation to trees and shubbery, may be divided into 

 two classes. First, the familiar birds that live in our orchards and gardens, 

 and increase in numbers in proportion as the woods are cleared, and the 

 lands devoted to tillage. To this class belong several of our sparrows, the 

 wren, the blue-bird, the American robin, the bobolink, the linnet, the yellow- 

 bird, and some others. The second are less familiar birds that frequent 

 the woods and wild pastures, and which would probably be exterminated by 

 reducing the whole forest to park or tillage. Among these may be named 

 the little wood-sparrow, one of the sweetest American songsters, nearly all the 

 thrushes, the towee finch, and many of the salvias, and woodpeckers. 



To preserve the first of these species little is necessary to be done except 

 to avoid destroying them : but to insure the multiplication of the second, we 

 must study their haunts, the substances provided by nature for their food, 

 the plants that afford them shelter, and to a certain extent labor to preserve 

 all these for their use. The little brown sparrow is never heard in the heart 

 of our villages, unless they are closely surrounded by woods. Yet this bird 

 doe3 not live in the woods. He frequents the pastures which are overgrown 

 with wild shrubs, and their undergrowth of vines, mosses and ferns that unite 

 them imperceptibly with the green sward by which they are surrounded. He 

 is always found in the whortleberry pastures, and probably makes his repast 

 on these simple fruits in their season. He builds his nest on the ground, in 

 a mossy knoll, under the protection of a thicket. Every bird is more or less 

 attached to a particular character of grounds and shrubbery; and if we de- 

 stroy this character, we drive this particular species from our neighbourhood, 

 to seek in other places its natural habitats. Hence we may account for the 

 comparative silence that pervades the grounds of some of our most admired 

 country seats ; for with respect to the wants of our most familiar birds, it is 

 possible that cultivation may be carried too far. 



There is no danger that, for many years to come, our lands will be so en- 

 tirely stripped of their native growth of herbs, trees and shrubs, as to leave 

 the birds without their natural shelter. But there is danger that they may 

 be wholly driven out of particular localities, and that the inhabitants may 

 thereby be deprived of the presence of many delightful warblers. In these 

 densely populated districts, the want of them would be the more painfully 

 felt, because they contain a greater number of cultivated people who can ap- 



