BIRDS 
41 
doubt that the presence of man has 
exerted a very marked and friendly in¬ 
fluence upon them, since they so multiply 
in his society. The birds of California, 
it is said, were mostly silent till after 
its settlement, and I doubt if the Indians 
heard the Wood-Thrush as we hear him. 
Where did the Bobolink disport himself 
before there were meadows in the North 
and rice-fields in the South? Was he the 
same blithe, merry-hearted beau then as 
now? And the Sparrow, the Lark, and 
the Goldfinch, birds that seem so indigen¬ 
ous to the open fields and so averse to the 
woods, we cannot conceive of their exist¬ 
ence in a vast wilderness and without 
man. Did they grow, like the flowers, 
when the conditions favorable to their 
existence were established? 
But to return. The Bluebird and Song- 
Sparrow, these universal favorites and 
firstlings of the spring, come before April, 
and their names are household words. 
May is the month of the Swallows and 
the Orioles. There are many other dis¬ 
tinguished arrivals, indeed nine-tenths of 
the birds are here by the last week in 
