86 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE, 
possessing similar habits, and frequenting the same 
localities. It is consequently impossible for man 
to exterminate any one species without indirectly 
benefiting some other species, which attracts him 
in a less degree, or not at all. This is unfortunate, 
for as the bright kinds, or those we esteem most, 
diminish in numbers the less interesting kinds 
multiply, and we lose much of the pleasure which 
bird life is fitted to give us. When we visit woods, 
or other places to which birds chiefly resort, in 
districts uninhabited by man, or where he pays 
little or no attention to the feathered creatures, the 
variety of the bird life encountered affords a new 
and great delight. There is a constant succession 
of new forms and new voices ; and in a single day 
as many species may be met with as one would 
find in England by searching diligently for a whole 
year. And yet this may happen in a district 
possessing no more species than England boasts ; 
and the actual number of individuals may be even 
less than with us. In. sparrows, for instance, of 
the one common species, we are exceedingly rich ; 
but in bird life generally, in variety of birds, 
especially in those of graceful forms and beautiful 
plumage, we have been growing poorer for the last 
fifty years, and have now come to so low a state 
that it becomes us to inquire whether it is not in 
our power to better ourselves. It is an old familiar 
