5 
/ 
To produce and multiply endlessly, 
without ever reaching the last possi¬ 
bility of excellence, and without com¬ 
mitting herself to any end, is the law 
of Nature. 
— Burroughs , Birds and Poets, p. 1S0. 
man or (anything else, that the world is capable of yielding. By 
proper care we can not only have a world full of such birds as we have 
now, but of birds with sweeter and sweeter 
song and more and more beautiful plu¬ 
mage. And in presence of these infinite 
possibilities for good or for ill we must 
above all things remember that every human action tends to make the 
w T orld a garden or a desert, a paradise of joy and beauty or a vale of 
tears. 
If only the birds we have, felt that they and their nests were safe, 
they might sing more and even sweeter than they do. Indeed, Bur¬ 
roughs remarks of English birds: “ They sing with more confidence 
and copiousness, and as if they, too, had Woad birds here are house and gar . 
been touched by civilization.” They den birds there (Eng.).— Burroughs.\ 
sing more hours in the day and more days in the year . 1 And, 
further, if our birds were uniformly safe in man’s presence and undis¬ 
turbed, they would doubtless come much closer to us, as they did to 
Thoreau, and to Celia Thaxter in her garden. And with proper care 
many of our best songsters and most useful birds that are now rare, 
might become more common, filling our parks and the thickly planted 
portions of our towns and even cities ; Ma?y haps faI1 inthe field 
and with much more caution than pre¬ 
ceded the introduction of the English 
sparrow, we might bring about our 
homes the most beautiful songsters of 
other lands. But by far the safer and 
wiser course, as indicated by our title, 
will be to begin by making the most of ?e“me°d P to'come. 
our native birds. These are a heritage — Emerson , tvoodnotes, /, 2. 
infinitely rich, developed through geological epochs to exactly fit all 
the conditions of life on this continent. It is no light matter to break 
into this vast living harmony, as our bitter experience with the Eng¬ 
lish sparrow bears ample testimony. 
With this wonderful power of increase the question naturally 
arises : Why do we not have many more birds than we find about us? 
Why have we not hundreds where we have but one? Has the natfiral 
Seldom seen by wishful eyes ; 
But all her shows did Nature yield, 
To please and win this pilgrim wise. 
He saw the partridge drum in the 
woods; 
He heard the woodcock’s evening 
hymn; 
He found the tawny thrushes broods; 
And the shy hawk did wait for him ; 
What others did at distance hear, 
And guessed within the thicket’s 
gloom, 
1 Burroughs, Fresh Fields, p. 136. 
