to
a result precisely opposite. The sparrow, we may presume, was originally
of a humble disposition, and when nothing better offered itself for a
singing-perch easily grew accustomed to standing upon a stone or a
little lump of earth; and this practice, long persisted in, naturally
had the effect to lessen the loudness of his voice. The skylark, on the
other hand, when he did not readily find a tree-top, said to himself,
"Never mind! I have a pair of wings." And so the lark is famous, while
the sparrow remains unheard-of, and is even mistaken for a
grasshopper.

How true it is that the very things which dishearten one nature and
break it down, only help another to find out what it was made for! If
you would foretell the development, either of a bird or of a man, it is
not enough to know his environment, you must know also what there is in
him.

We have possibly made too much of the savanna sparrow's innocent
eccentricity. He fills his place, and fills it well; and who knows but
that he may yet outshine the skylark? There is a promise, I believe, for
those who humble themselves. But what shall be said of species which do
not even try to sing, and that, notwithstanding they have all the
structural peculiarities of singing birds, and must, almost certainly,
have come from ancestors who were singers? We have already mentioned the
house sparrow, whose defect is the more mysterious on account of his
belonging to so highly musical a family. But _he_ was never accused of
not being noisy enough, while we have one bird who, though he is classed
with the oscines, passes his life in almost unbroken silence. Of course
I refer to the waxwing, or cedar-bird, whose faint, sibilant whisper can
scarcely be thought to contradict the foregoing description. By what
strange freak he has lapsed into this ghostly habit, nobody knows. I
make no account of the insinuation that he gave up music because it
hindered his success in cherry-stealing. He likes cherries, it is true;
and who can blame him? But he would need to work hard to steal more than
does that indefatigable songster, the robin. I feel sure he has some
better reason than this for his Quakerish conduct. But, however he came
by his stillness, it is likely that by this time he plumes himself upon
it. Silence is golden, he thinks, the supreme result of the highest
aesthetic culture. Those loud creatures, the thrushes and finches! What a
vulgar set they are, to be sure, the more's the