iv 
PREFACE. 
tude between our best biped orators and 
those of the fields and groves. The style of 
the latter is equally as impressive, varying 
from the simple to the sublime, and that 
again to the more lofty. In the language of 
others may be traced a similitude to the soft 
insinuating voice of many a favoured lover. 
Even the little humming-bird may be com- 
pared to some of those gay fluttering youths 
who whisper soft nonsense into beauty's ear 
— flattering all, constant to none. 
I would therefore advise those who dis- 
pute the powers of the feathered orators and 
poets, to stroll into the fields or woods, and 
spend an hour, morning and evening, in the 
sweet month of May, listening to their vari- 
ous notes, and I doubt not they will return 
convinced that there is a " language of 
birds," however indifferently I may have 
represented it. 
