BIRDS AND BIRDS’ NESTS.

I my young readers love birds as well as I do, they will not
consider it a hardship to follow me through a few pages, of
rambling thoughts about these songsters. If they do not
love birds as well, then I think there is more need that

they should go with me. So in either case I shall hope to
have their company.

T really do not see how any one can help loving birds. If I
should find a person who said he cared nothing for the music
of the orchard and meadow, I should certainly think there was
something wrong in the machinery of his mind.

Of all birds, I love the robin most—his notes are so cheerful,
he is so confiding, and builds his nest so near my door. Besides,
he is with us among the first in the spring. In the month of
April, the robin commences his nest. Watch their movements
in April, and you will see them, in pairs, flying about from
tree to tree, until they find a suitable place for their nest, and
then they set about the work of building. The robin’s nest
is formed generally of small sticks and straws, held in their
place by mortar. The inside is finished with a soft lining.

“Tt wins my admiration
To view the structure of that little work—
A bird’s nest. Mark it well, within, without;
No tool hath he that wrought; no knife to cut;
No nail to fix; no bodkin to insert;
No glue to join; his little beak was all.
And yet how neatly finished! what nice hand,
With every instrument and means of art,
And twenty years’ apprenticeship to boot,
Could make me such another? Fondly, then,
We boast of excellence, whose noblest skill

Instinctive genius shames.”
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