228 
NATURE NOTES. 
little brood. At ordinary times this robin used to sing his best 
when challenged by a rapturous little singer of our own, a gold- 
finch-canary mule, who liked to show how he could outsing the 
robin. They would answer each other and, in rivalry, strain 
their little throats to the utmost. This bird of mine was so tame 
that he would hop or fly about the garden, and go quietly into 
his cage again, and sing a soft little song, surpassingly sweet, as 
he was taken in to roost. By-and-by, however, through old age 
or weakness, this sweet songster died, and was buried at the 
bottom of the garden with a poetic epitaph. 
A love for Nature may be cherished best of all, perhaps, 
when it is wholly free from the desire to take the life of bird, 
or fish, or insect. The great American nuturalist, Thoreau, 
believes that no humane being past the thoughtless age of boy- 
hood, would ever wish to destroy any creature that holds its life 
by the same tenure wherewith he holds his own. Ruskin wisely 
urges everyone to cultivate perfect sympathy with every living 
thing around him ; and in one of the rules of his Society of St. 
George, he makes the members promise to neither kill nor hurt 
any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, 
but to strive to save and comfort all gentle life, and guard and 
perfect all natural beauty upon the earth. This view has grown 
with me from boyhood, and still grows with increasing strength. 
The truest lovers of Nature are quite content to watch and 
observe, without the slightest wish to kill ; they thus secure the 
fullest confidence and harmony with all living creatures, and 
they are quite ready to endure the contempt that is poured out 
upon them by the lovers of sport as fadmongers. A Burns can 
feel sympathy with a wounded hare, and awaken universal pity 
for a field-mouse whose “ wee bit housie ” has been laid in ruins 
by his ploughshare ; and a Thoreau moves a mother’s heart by 
truly asserting that in its extremity the hare cries like a child. 
W'e may well take to heart the lesson given by Wordsworth : — 
“ Never to blend our pleasure or our pride 
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.” 
To a man who can take an interest in pursuits such as are 
here noted, they will form a perennial delight, ever varying, and 
never found to fail. In whatever situation he may be placed, 
whatever may be his vocation, these studies will always furnish 
companionship for his daily walks ; and the very remembrance 
of them will in hours of solitude prove a truly delightful solace. 
Even London, in its dreariest days, is rendered more than 
tolerable by the recollection of what he has many a time seen 
and heard, and hopefully enjoyable by the thought of what may 
be expected in days to come. To one such lover of Nature it 
happened once, some fourteen years ago, that on a w'ell remem- 
bered Tuesday, often cited as “Black Tuesday,” when London 
had been unexpectedly buried, like a city of the dead, beneath 
the fall from an appalling snowstorm, and eminent travellers 
