every English and American farmer might study with profit.



CHAPTER III.



ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BIRDS.

"What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody."
SHELLEY'S "SKYLARK."

"Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, whose melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!
Whose habitations in the tree-tops, even,
Are half-way houses on the road to heaven."
LONGFELLOW.

Having spent a couple of hours very pleasantly at Tiptree Hall, I
turned my face in a northerly direction for a walk through the best
agricultural section of Essex. While passing through a grass field