CLASS II. AYES: ORDER 2. PASSERES. 
191 
Such is the Bobolink of our meadows, and such has he been from " creation's dawn" — a gay, 
rollicking fellow, satisfied with himself, and therefore content with the world around him. We, 
in our conceit, imagine that he lives in our fields because he loves us, and that he sings because 
his song pleases us ; but the fact is, that he prefers our meadows only because they afford 
hira food and shelter. He is not indebted to man for his existence, nor dependent upon man 
for his happiness. No doubt that he and his kindred migrated to these temperate zones, and 
built their nests and poured out their ditties, just as they do now, in the dim ages of the past, 
long, long before civilized man had settled or even discovered America. The morning and the 
evening hymn of these birds filled the air when only the stolid Indian was their listener, or 
even before, just as at the present day. The other familiar birds — robins, sparrows, bluebirds, orioles, 
fly-catchers, swallows — which nestle around our houses, are attracted to these places, not by any 
sympathy with man, but by the fruits he produces, and the worms and insects that flourish in 
the rich soil which he creates ; perchance in some cases by the protection which the j>resence of 
man affords to them and their offspring, from hawks, owls, eagles, and other enemies. Birds are 
quick observers ; if by chance one of them finds a feast in a field, in his visits to it he is noticed, 
and thus becomes a telegraph to others. In the spring of 1858 I had a rich garden-lot ploAved 
up and laid down to grass, sowing it first with oats and then with grass-seed. In a week it was 
the general resort of birds of many kinds — robins, orioles, cat-birds, blackbirds, sparrows, linnets, 
and finches. The circumstances permitted me to observe their proceedings, and I readily per- 
ceived that the orioles, seeing the robins attracted to this spot, followed them ; the cat-birds fol- 
lowed the orioles, the blackbirds followed the cat-birds, and so on. A group of school-boys are 
not sooner informed of a deposit of nuts, than are the birds, of a harvest of seeds or insects. Thus 
it is that cultivated districts become the chief resort of many species, especially during the breed- 
ing season. By the facilities of support thus afforded, many kinds of birds may be, and doubtless 
are, increased in numbers ; many, certainly, are thus drawn around the abodes of man. But by 
far the larger part of the birds throughout the world are never seen by man. Not a twentieth 
part of the world's surface is occupied even by the thousand millions of human inhabitants. The 
morning — that daily miracle of the universe — that diurnal creation of a world of light out of the 
chaos of darkness — rises upon the surface of the boundless sea, the lone mountain, the remote 
wilderness, scattering on every side its light, and everywhere waking its anthem of life, though man 
is not there to witness it, or to participate in it. The depths of the ocean are illumined with gems 
and coral, and fishes of purple and gold, yet from these boundless realms man is forever banished. 
The gorgeous trogons of Central America, the superb macaAvs of Brazil, the glittering touracos of 
Africa, the satin bower-birds of Australia — the myriads of feathered tribes, cither glorious in the 
splendor of their plumage or the melody of their songs — have enlivened their native haunts for 
thousands of years without the presence of man ; nay, the very instincts of many of these birds, 
endowed with surpassing beauty, lead them to hide their splendors in the remote, undiscovered re- 
cesses of the wilderness. Here, in these hermit retreats, they flourish, singing, sporting, and 
spreading their golden feathers to the sun, so long as man is not there ; when he approaches, they 
dwindle away and perish ; for man, in respect to many of the feathered tribes, is not their friend, 
but their enemy and destroyer. In the Astor Library is a magnificent work by Gould on the birds of 
Australia — seven volumes, folio — and all these diversified tribes — some of them of a splendor of plu- 
mage that defies description — have remained till the present century unknown to civilized man. 
Nay, whole races of birds, with all their shining feathers and delicious melody, have lived, flour- 
ished, and passed away, ages before man was an inhabitant of the earth. It is manifest that man, 
in a physical sense, is not necessary to the great movement of life and light, of majesty and do- 
minion, in the universe. He is only a humble incident in creation ; the birds sing and the trees 
wave, equally unconscious of his presence and his absence. They were not made for him, nor he 
for them ; all are subservient to the Creator. How strange, how mysterious, how humiliating is 
the state of man, self-banished, by atheistic doubt or infidelity, from the great Author of Life and 
Light, since he, and he alone, of all created things, can know his isolation and appreciate his con- 
dition ; how glorious his hopes and expectations, when viewed in that Mirror of Faith which carries 
him beyond this transient being — this alliance with birds and beasts — into everlasting communion 
with his Maker ! 
