song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. Oh, how I envied him!
No lessons, no task, no school; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields,
and fine weather. Had I been then more versed in poetry, I might have
addressed him in the words of Logan to the cuckoo:

"Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.

"Oh. could I fly, I'd fly with thee!
We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring."

6. Further observation and experience have given me a different idea of
this feathered voluptuary, which I will venture to impart for the benefit
of my young readers, who may regard him with the same unqualified envy and
admiration which I once indulged. I have shown him only as I saw him at
first, in what I may call the poetical part of his career, when he, in a
manner, devoted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoyments, and was a bird
of music, and song, and taste, and sensibility, and refinement. While this
lasted he was sacred from injury; the very schoolboy would not fling a
stone at him, and the merest rustic would pause to listen to his strain.

7. But mark the difference. As the year advances, as the clover blossoms
disappear, and the spring fades into summer, he gradually gives up his
elegant tastes and habits, doffs his poetical suit of black, assumes a
russet, dusty garb, and sinks to the gross enjoyment of common vulgar
birds. His notes no longer vibrate on the ear; he is stuffing himself with