amp remained to us. It was a walk up a long,
lonely road to a solitary thorn-tree, where I was studying a shrike's
nest.

Just as we left the village a robin burst into song, and this bird,
because of certain associations, was the Enthusiast's favorite singer.
We paused to listen. When bird music begins to wane, when thrushes have
taken their broods afar, and orioles and catbirds are heard no more, one
appreciates the hearty philosophy, the cheerful and pleasing song, of
the robin. It is truly delightful then to hear his noisy challenge, his
gleeful "laugh," his jolly song. We may indeed rhapsodize over our rare,
fine singers, but after all we could better spare one and all of them
than our two most common songsters, our faithful stand-bys, upon whom we
can always count to preach to us the gospel of contentment,
cheerfulness, and patience,--the dear common robin and the blessed
little song sparrow. No weather is so hot that they will not pour out
their evangel to us; no rain so wet, no wind so strong, that these two
will not let their sweet voices be heard. Blessed, I say, be the common
birds, living beside our dwellings, bringing up their young under our
very eyes, accepting our advances in a spirit of friendliness, coming
earliest, staying latest, and keeping up their song even through the
season of feeding, when many become silent. These two are indispensable
to us; these two should be dearest to us; these, above all others,
should our children be taught to respect and love.

The robin ceased, and we passed on. One more voice saluted us from the
last house of the village: a wren, whose nest was placed in a bracket
under the roof, sang his gushing little ditty, and then in a moment we
were in a different bird world. From one side came the bobolink's
voice,

"Preaching boldly to the sad the folly of despair,
And telling whom it may concern that all the world is fair;"

from the other, the plaintive notes of the meadow lark.

[Sidenote: _THE LARK'S "SPUTTER."_]

Lovely indeed the lark looked among the buttercups in the pasture,
stretching himself up from the ground, tall and slim, and almost as
yellow as they; and very droll his sputtering cry, as he flew over the
road to the deep grass of the meadow, to attend to the wants of his
family, for the meadow was full of mysterious sounds under the grass,
and seemed to give both bobolink and lark much concern.

The call I name the "sputter," because it sounds like