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BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
adays persecutes most cruelly. What is "required 
for its protection ? To reveal the bird as soul, to 
show that it is a person." 
Vain, vain dream which so many have had ! 
Did the writer, enthusiast and dreamer that he 
was, know and take into consideration the dull, 
stubborn, brutish character of that huge mass of 
humanity which he aspired to leaven ? It was not 
by merely writing an eloquent book that so great 
a change could be brought about. To him the 
bird might be a " soul," " person," but he could not 
make Michelets of other men ; to the ordinary 
Frenchman it remained a creature that existed for 
one purpose only — namely, that he might have the 
pleasure of killing and perhaps eating it ; but, in 
any case, of killing it. 
But with regard to this matter, we cannot very 
well afford to cast a stone at our neighbours. I 
remember when Swinburne's splendid ode to the 
sea-mew appeared, one stanza of which I recall — 
Ah, well were I for ever 
Couldst thou change lives with me, 
And take my song's wild honey, 
And give me back thy sunny 
Wide eyes that seai ch the sea, 
And wings that weary never ; 
Ah, well were I for ever 
Couldst thou change lives with me ! 
And that Andrew Lang wrote at the time, in refer- 
