tired mothers must dream half the night of those bottomless pits they have been trying all day to fill. The robins are especially industrious here, keeping by far the longest hours. I wonder do they look or listen, when after a run they suddenly stop with their heads so alertly cocked, or do they do all three, Stop, Look and Listen? And how eagerly they seize upon any opportunity. When you are cutting the grass they are ever at hand, waiting for something to turn up. I have seen boys in the South whip the ground with bunches of twigs when they were hunting for bait. They say that the worms then think it is raining and come to the surface. Possibly the lawn-mower is also deluding. Little birds are no Buddhas, living on a grain of rice a day; they would seem to be considerably larger on the inside than they are on the outside. What incredible quantities they consume, and and what queer thingsworms, wriggling six-legged protestants and I know not what all. But, of course, they need it; they have a lot of growing to do. If human babies increased in weight in the same proportion, they would reach a hundred pounds by about their twelfth day. And then there is their drink. That puzzles me. Do the mothers carry them water in their beaks? In that case, no wonder they are always calling for more; that would be like trying to satisfy a child on a crowded train with a spoonful of liquid at the bottom of a half-collapsed paper cup.

Wrens are very small, just voice and wings. But what bright chaps they are, and so honored too through long tradition. Little Kings they are called. You know that if you kill one

of these diminutive singers, even accidentally, you will break your arm shortly afterward. There is only one exception to this. At Christmas the wren may be killed, and with profit. In Ireland, for instance, at Christmas time, they used to crucify the poor little chap, hanging him by one leg in the center of two hoops crossed at right angles. It was an old, old custom-a new king is born, so away with the old. Of course, latterly there was some vague notion that the new king was Christ, but the custom really far antedates Christ, going back to those distant days when a new reign came in naturally with the winter solstice, with the turning of the sun once more toward the north.

And then there is that other legend, maybe not so well known, that of when the wren undertook the part of Prometheus. The sun's rays had been withdrawn from the earth, the divine flavor lost, and the wren it was who first started out to recover it. A spark was obtained and the return trip began. First one side of the beak then the other; it burned him most terribly! Finally, in sheer desperation it was thrust under his wing. Alas! there too it burned beyond all endurance, and he had, at last, to let it go. But what a brave attempt! Those rusty, scorched wings of his are a mark of high honor.

However, to come back to the present. When I put up my two wren-boxes I was all inexperienced as a landlord, and did not even know that there was a zoning law. I put them too near together, and I put one of them, most illegally, right under a robin's nest. Well, if there was ever a surprised and disgusted. bird, it was this robin when he re

turned from his day's work and discovered what had happened. He, and later his wife, studied the situation for nearly an hour and then, having decided that the thing was hopeless, they deliberately abandoned their home-fortunately at that time having no one in the nursery and not even any luggage. Then, within a few days, the wrens came, but only two of them; and they, the little rascals, have since used both of the houses-moving from one to the other in the middle of the season, to avoid the necessity of doing any house-cleaning.

It is not only the feeding of the youngsters that keeps the mothers busy, there are many other duties, much instruction to be given. A flapper came up on our porch the other day, and stood there looking us over. For once here was a flapper with a starethat was quite unassumed. What chances these fledglings take! They do not know enough to be afraid. When the robin mother appeared there was a scene indeedsuch scolding, such hustling and slapping with wings, until shelter was reached. And the mother was right, even though in this particular case no harm would have befallen. That old saying, Spare the rod and spoil the child, is not half bad-especially when the rod here is taken reasonably as connoting the exercise of wise authority. Children have brains possibly-but there is one thing they do not have and cannot have, and that is judgment. Judgment rests upon knowledge, real knowledge, and it calls too for experience. What children get in their early experimenting is merely sensa

tion. To convert this sensation into actual experience of life, time is required. There must be accumulation and coördination; interpretation must be learned, and a true sense of values. One cannot accomplish this overnight, nor unguided. Flappers will never "save society," "plan a new morality," "effect a more stable scheme of life." They are just healthy little animals, supplying energy to the world, not direction. They make no valuable social contribution whatever until they begin to grow away from themselves-like the communism of Russia, they are successful only in so far as they become something else.

But now here is a delicate point, one calling for the exercise of discretion. The robin beats up its runaway child, but it knows when to stop, when to give over its care, when to hand over its responsibility. This modern practice of letting the children occupy the whole of our lives, not only in childhood when they need us, but long after childhood when it is their pleasure not their necessity that is in question, is not going to get us anywhere-anywhere that we shall like. Longfellow had the right idea-give the children an hour. But alas, now, before we can attain to this, we shall have first to persuade our present masters to give an hour to us.

Comes a pause in the day's occupations,

That is known as the Old Folks' Hour.

Let us try to get this. It may turn out to be that opening which shall lead on to a greater freedom, possibly even to the recovery of our sovereignty.

Nor is it only our pleasure and convenience that are at stake here, there is also to be considered the effect of our slavery on progress in general. How shall we ever get on if we are continually turning back to the beginning? We start on a seventy year journey. Our taximeters clip along merrily and we make, say, a thirty year advance—and then suddenly we halt-"Let's go back and help the youngsters." And back we go, and for the next twenty-five or more years we cover again the ground already passed over-talking baby talk, sharing in the children's games, playing parchesi, fumbling at school lessons, trying to reunderstand and to reënjoy the inanities of college. No wonder we never grow up! When we finally get leisure, that is, when the children, now grown, get tired of our fussing and try to avoid us, then we look at the dial and find that already some fifty-five or sixty years have been ticked off. And where are we? Just where we were when the figure stood at thirty-and not so well off as we were then, for now we have no longer the energy of thirty. We are too old to look ahead with ambition. "Habit has now become stronger than desire, and anticipation has ceased to be hope."

But what of the next generation? Will it not have profited by our sacrifice? How can it? When these children of ours reach thirty they will do exactly what we are doing. No wonder man has made no mental progress since the days of the early Greeks. Were it not for our familyneglecting and generally irresponsible inventors, there could be no progress at all. It is the inventors who are carrying us, giving us buttons to

push and thus enabling us to deceive ourselves into thinking that we are cleverer than we are. How much wiser are the birds. Just as soon as their children are able to fend for themselves, they drop them flat, and go off on their own business.

22

And they are wise too in other ways, these birds, wise in the great principles of life, in all that really counts for the species. They are Nature's own children, with none of the failures of our own vaunted but artificial superiority. Life they take as the day brings it. They are happy when happiness is possible. They do not waste their good time, as we do, worrying about the bad time that may come. For our worry they substitute caution, and they observe even this subconciously, not fearfully.

See them in their human friendships. They do not fly into our hands, but that does not mean that they do not like us. They are in this somewhat like those people who are not superstitious but who, nevertheless, will not sit down thirteen at tablethey are withheld by their ancient inheritances, their instinct compels them to play safe. And so they differ too in regard to what they feel is safe this again being a matter of old experience. Here is the cardinal, the most timid of all my regular tenants. Possibly he has been taught by his forefathers that this beautiful color of his has its disadvantages, that there are wicked people who would rob him, take his coat from his back. No wonder His Eminence is inclined to a position high in the trees. And yet he likes me and follows me even though keeping at a

distance. That quick call note of recognition is ever to be heard, that "tweet-tweet," so unlike what one would expect from the greatest whistler of them all.

Compare the cardinals with the robins. The robin-redbreast plucked a thorn from Christ's crown, was stained by His blood, and thus won protection; but our robins, unfortunately, are not included in this benefit. Still, they are fond of us. They are like affectionate but diffident children, pleased to be with us as long as we do not notice them too directly. Pay no attention to them and they hop along contentedly not ten feet from you; speak to them and they promptly run away.

And then once more, there are the wrens and the catbirds. The wrens love the thrill of experimenting, of playing at danger. They will fly through a group on the porch and even, for a second, perch on the back of a chair. And the catbirds, when you are working in the shrubbery, will come almost within arm's length. They are really the most friendly of them all, but they, too, are discriminating; they will first test you, and then, if you are found worthy, they will give you their full confidence. The other day one was with me, entertaining me with song, when I happened to get rather too near to his nest. He suddenly broke off and called to his mate, who was setting, with a sharp little “Anhh! Anhh!" as much as to say, "Keep your eye open!"—and then he went on with his music.

Does this caution deny friendship? Not a bit of it! I am well satisfied. I give these morsels of flying life all my affection, and they repay me a

thousand times, if only with their songs; so brief, so intensely beautiful, that even repetition long continued does not cloy. Mr. G. J. Nathan says that "one of our most persistent legends is that the noises of birds are musical." Well, then that is a good legend. These latter-day critics are most amusing in their effort to shock, and, also, in their childlike belief that their contradictions and naughtiness must be admired-even when condemned. Such bad children they are! When I read their articles I seem to hear always a loud noise, a shrill whistling and catcalling and a banging of desk lids; I see blackboards covered with spitballs and with caricatures of "Tee-cher."

But, forgetting Mr. Nathan, how lucky we are that the birds do not pick up the popular airs. Suppose one had to listen all day to bits from the musical comedies, or possibly, again, to some old crow trying to recall "Beautiful Lady" or "Sweet Marie." Edmund Kean's great grandfather, Henry Carey, wrote "God Save the King" and then hanged himself. Suppose the English sparrows should whistle this now. Or suppose that this catbird, trying experiments outside of my window, should break out with the "Star Spangled Banner"— up I should have to get and judging from his present resolution I might be kept standing for long.

I wonder if blue jays sing. One passed through here the other day and caused much excitement. The whole bird population was out to get him off the premises. And yet for myself I should have been glad to have had a chat with the invader. There is surely a greatness of soul in this ruthless bird. It was most ad

mirable the calmness with which he sat on the edge of the bird-bath, the angry imprecations from the neighboring trees all unheeded. Here was an Attila maybe, but certainly no Nero. It was on a Saturday, too, and every one knows that blue jays spend Friday with the Devil-he could have given me the very latest news of a most interesting region. What a good-looking chap he was, and what a beautiful coat. He reminded me of the Duchess of Bedford, in honor of whose riding-habit George II changed the color of the naval officers' uniform from scarlet to blue.

But, as I am reminded just now by a clamor of protests in the distance, we do not have to wait for blue jays to stir us. We have degenerate neighbors who go in for cats. Listen to those robins "Help! Help! Come quickly, come quickly!" How instantly do these birds recognize their enemy. Even in the woods, where there is a concealing carpet of spreading May-apple leaves, they do not have to look twice. The rabbits, for example, do not give them even a scare, the birds seem perfectly at home with them, and yet these cottontails room with us only-we have no vegetable garden, they take all of their meals out. I get fooled myself sometimes, but the birds, never. Of course, a cat may be all right in its place say as an Egyptian mummy-but I have gone back to

my boyhood and have constructed a sling-shot. I am pretty good with a sling-shot. But why are cats, anyway? When I find a little heap of feathers under a bush, I could demolish the whole feline race. And why, oh why, was a cat ever given nine lives? A tailor, they say, is but the ninth of a man-Queen Elizabeth, you will remember, once received a deputation of eighteen tailors with the greeting, "Good morrow, gentlemen both." But consider a moment. Counting one man as one life, if it takes nine tailors to make one man, and a cat has nine lives, what then is the relative insurance risk of a tailor and a cat? Is a cat equal to eighteen tailors or to eighty-one? I do not seem to be able to figure that out. But why should a cat be given any advantage— surely a tailor is more useful? The ways of nature are strange.