notes. Only do not be so mean and treacherous as to draw a snare or
close a trap over the poor things when they come, as they think, to be
fed by your bounty. People who love music so well as to make an innocent
creature miserable that they may enjoy its songs will wish, some day,
that they had been born deaf.

But there is one thing that I am sorry to see many boys doing every
spring, and which they cannot defend by any such excuses. I often wonder
who was the first to begin such a disgraceful custom, the most cruel,
senseless, and babyish piece of folly: I mean what is called
bird-nesting. God said to the creatures, "Be fruitful and
multiply,"--"let fowl multiply in the earth." At the same time, He gave
them a wonderful instinct and skill, such as man's reason cannot
imitate. The birds must keep their eggs very warm for a certain number
of days, to bring to life the little creatures that are forming within
them; and the eggs being so very delicate and brittle, they must also
have a soft place to lie in, close enough for the bird's body to cover
them all; and be out of reach of rats, and other enemies. So, when the
bird is going to lay, she and her mate set to work, and what wonderful
work it is! These little creatures, without any hands, or even paws like
four-footed animals, to help them, and with only the bits of stick, hay,
grass, dead leaves, wool, hairs, and moss, that they can pick up with
their bills, presently form a soft, snug, warm, strong apartment, as
round as a tea-cup, and exactly of the proper size; placed, too, where
it will be little seen, sheltered above from the wet, yet airy enough to
keep it fresh and wholesome, and so smooth on the inside that even the
delicate naked body of a bird just hatched cannot be made uneasy by a
rough point. It costs the parent-birds a great deal of trouble; and if
you leave a nest untouched from one year to another, neither disturbing
the eggs nor the nestings, you will find it the next spring nicely