“Made the aisles of the dim wood ring
      With the anthems of the free,”

should love the fellowship of these native singers of the field and forest, and give them names their hearts loved in the old home land beyond the sea!  They did not consult Linnaeus, nor any musty Latin genealogy of Old World birds, at the christening of these songsters.  There was a good family resemblance in many cases.  The blustering partridge, brooding over her young in the thicket, was very nearly like the same bird in England.  For the mellow-throated thrush of the old land they found a mate in the new, of the same size, color, and general habits, though less musical.  The blackbird was nearly the same in many respects, though the smaller American wore a pair of red epaulettes.  The swallows had their coat tails cut after the same old English pattern, and built their nests after the same model, and twittered under the eaves with the same ecstacy, and played the same antics in the air.  But the two dearest home-birds of the fatherland had no family relations nor counterparts in America; and the pilgrim fathers and their children could not make their humble homes happy without the lark and the robin, at least in name and association; so they looked about them for substitutes.  There was a plump, full-chested bird, in a chocolate-colored vest, with a bluish dress coat, that would mount the highest tree-top in early spring, and play his flute by the hour for very joy to see the snow melt and the buds swell again.  There was such a rollicking happiness in his loud, clear notes, and he apparently sang them in such sympathy with human fellowships, and hopes, and homes, and he was such a cheery and confiding denizen of the orchard and garden withal, that he became at once the pet bird of old and young, and was called the robin; and well would it be if its English namesake possessed its sterling virtues; for, with all its pleasant traits and world-wide reputation, the English robin is a pretentious, arrogant busybody, characteristically pugilistic and troublesome in the winged society of England.  In form, dress, deportment, disposition, and in voice and taste for vocal music, the American robin surpasses the English most decidedly.  In this our grave forefathers did more than justice to the home-bird they missed on Plymouth Rock.  In this generous treatment of their affection for it, they perhaps condoned for mating the English lark so incongruously; but it was true their choice was very limited.  To match the prima donna carissima of English field and sky, it was necessary to select a meadow bird, with some other features of resemblance.  It would never do to give the cherished name and association to one that lived in the forest, or built its nest in the tree-tops or house-tops, or to one that was black, yellow, or red.  Having to conciliate all these conditions, and do the best with the material at hand, they pitched upon a rather large, brownish