better that
_role_ is taken by the birds than by the common run of story-book
heroes.

People whose notions of the subject are derived from attending to the
antics of our imported sparrows have no idea how delicate and beautiful
a thing a real feathered courtship is. To tell the truth, these
foreigners have associated too long and too intimately with men, and
have fallen far away from their primal innocence. There is no need to
describe their actions. The vociferous and most unmannerly importunity
of the suitor, and the correspondingly spiteful rejection of his
overtures by the little vixen on whom his affections are for the moment
placed,--these we have all seen to our hearts' discontent.

The sparrow will not have been brought over the sea for nothing,
however, if his bad behavior serves to heighten our appreciation of our
own native songsters, with their "perfect virtues" and "manners for the
heart's delight."

The American robin, for instance, is far from being a bird of
exceptional refinement. His nest is rude, not to say slovenly, and his
general deportment is unmistakably common. But watch him when he goes
a-wooing, and you will begin to feel quite a new respect for him. How
gently he approaches his beloved! How carefully he avoids ever coming
disrespectfully near! No sparrow-like screaming, no dancing about, no
melodramatic gesticulation. If she moves from one side of the tree to
the other, or to the tree adjoining, he follows in silence. Yet every
movement is a petition, an assurance that his heart is hers and ever
must be. The action is extremely simple; there is nothing of which to
make an eloquent description; but I should pity the man who could
witness it with indifference. Not that the robin's suit is always
carried on in the same way; he is much too versatile for that. On one
occasion, at least, I saw him holding himself absolutely motionless, in
a horizontal posture, staring at his sweetheart as if he would charm her
with his gaze, and emitting all the while a subdued hissing sound. The
significance of this conduct I do not profess to have understood; it
ended with his suddenly darting at the female, who took wing and was
pursued. Not improbably the robin finds the feminine nature somewhat
fickle, and counts it expedient to vary his tactics accordingly; for it
is getting to be more and more believed that, in kind at least, the
intelligence of the lower animals is not different from ours.

I once cam