A REVISED CREED. 
113 
means “I swallow whole”) is for the time being supplant¬ 
ed by “dubito,” (which means “I wonder if that’s really 
so?”) is this : IS IT TRUK? Then follow the processes 
of sifting the evidence, assorting the facts, multiplying ob¬ 
servations, eliminating prejudice, allowing for the per¬ 
sonal equation, and all those things which the modern and • 
scientific method deems essential to the establishment of 
each and every article of its creed. So the bird lovers’ 
creed must suffer analysis, destructive, if need be, in the 
interest of truth ; for the scientific man insists that facts, 
thoughts and words must correspond. 
At the outset I shall confess that I said “Amen” hearti¬ 
ly to the sparrow article of the aforesaid creed for many 
years. I had up to a certain time been unable to discover 
that these birds were possessed of any merits whatever. I 
thought their songs unmusical, their voices harsh, their 
flight awkward, their manners offensive, their dispositions 
cruel, their habits injurious to man. A series of rude but 
pleasing shocks effected a complete conversion. 
A little party of us were out one day on birds and flow¬ 
ers intent. It was in May, when the air resounds with 
sweetest lays. The oriole and the grosbeak and the linnet 
were singing their most passionate love songs. Nest build¬ 
ing was at its height. Native sparrows and warblers flitted 
industriously about field and grove, lightening their labors 
with music’s charm. As we approached a dense hedge of 
arbor vitae our attention was arrested by an unusually sweet, 
low twittering which proceeded from some flock concealed 
in it. We agreed we had never heard the goldfinches war¬ 
ble so charmingly and attributed the unwonted excellence 
of their performance to the springtime ecstacy of love. 
With the utmost caution we crept nearer to them, all the 
while listening intently so as not to lose a note of that rare 
symphony. At length we startled them and they flew off. 
They were—English sparrows! So shock number one 
