hard and horny hands, and asked her to sell them the bird, that it might sing to them while they were bending to the pick and the spade.  She was poor, and the gold was heavy; yet she could not sell the warbling joy of her life.  But she told them that they might come whenever they would to hear it sing.  So, on Sabbath days, having no other preacher nor teacher, nor sanctuary privilege, they came down in large companies from their gold-pits, and listened to the devotional hymns of the lark, and became better and happier men for its music.

Seriously, it may be urged that the refined tastes, arts, and genius of the present day do not develop themselves symmetrically or simultaneously in this matter.  Here are connoisseurs and enthusiasts in vegetable nature hunting up and down all the earth’s continents for rare trees, plants, shrubs, and flowers.  They are bringing them to England and America in shiploads, to such extent and variety, that nearly all the dead languages and many of the living are ransacked to furnish names for them.  Llamas, dromedaries, Cashmere goats, and other strange animals, are brought, thousands of miles by sea and land, to be acclimatised and domesticated to these northern countries.  Artificial lakes are made for the cultivation of fish caught in Antipodean streams.  That is all pleasant and hopeful and proper.  The more of that sort of thing the better.  But why not do the other thing, too?  Vattemare made it the mission of his life to induce people of different countries to exchange books, or unneeded duplicates of literature.  We need an Audubon or Wilson, not to make new collections of feathered skeletons, and new volumes on ornithology, but to effect an exchange of living birds between Europe and America; not for caging, not for Zoological gardens and museums, but for singing their free songs in our fields and forests.  There is no doubt that the English lark would thrive and sing as well in America as in this country.  And our bobolink would be as easily acclimatised in Europe.  Who could estimate the pleasure which such an exchange in the bird-world would give to millions on both sides of the Atlantic?

There are some English birds which we could not introduce into the feathered society of America, any more than we could import a score of British Dukes and Duchesses, with all their hereditary dignities and grand surroundings, into the very heart and centre of our democracy.  For instance, the grave and aristocratic rooks, if transported to our country, would turn up their noses and caw with contempt at our institutions—­even at our oldest buildings and most solemn and dignified oaks.  It is very doubtful if they would be conciliated into any respect for the Capitol or The White House at Washington.  They have an intuitive and most discriminating perception of antiquity, and their adhesion to it is invincible.  Whether they came in with the Normans, or before, history does not say.