little creature did not, absolutely, seem capable of imagining that there could be such things as evil or danger in a world where the sun shone bright, and the leaves were all so rustling green. It had not yet learned the terrible lesson of hate and death. It had only learned of love, beneath the warm brooding of its gentle mother's breast; and now the tender innocent, with its unvitiated vision, saw the upturned face of man, with that true recognition that first graced Adam in the Eden of his birth and power, as sovereign, lord and mild protector, not as persecutor, tyrant and the brutal robber.

I never saw an incident more beautiful, or that filled me with such strange and glad delight. I felt as if a messenger of harmony and holy peace had left some Halcyon's nest of love, to bring me calm and holy teachings, and I could not bring myself to let it go away from me-cruel as it seems thus to have to abuse that meek seraphic confidence.

I am not romancing now. I am telling you a vivid fact of natural truth-that strange little bird-that sweet new comer in the birth of love-fed from my hand as regularly on from that moment, as it ever did from its mother's bill—never exhibited any fear of me, and never made any attempt to escape. It followed me everywhere about my room, and perched constantly upon or close to my person.

Alas! this too great affection finally proved the cause of its loss to me.

I left my room hastily one day, and this affectionate creature followed close at my heels, without my observing it!

It was lost! My gentle little Wood Thrush, I never yet loved a pet so dearly!

A short time after the loss of our charming pet Brownie, a dear friend presented my wife with an English Wood Thrush. It was a remarkably fine specimen-a male in the first year. We give you here a singularly accurate portrait of this bird, in the plumage of the second year. We called him "Brownie the Second," and I have some curious things to relate to you of him, too.

I had a theory which I often broached to my wife concerning this branch of the family Turdinæ. It was, that the Wood Thrush constituted the feathered incarnation of the Affectional Sentiment in Mankind-that in its mellow, clear and wonderfully liquid notes, we heard the natural language of tenderness, pity, charity and hope, and that therefore, the fact of Brownie's feeding the poor Kelpie was no accident, but that the same sympathetic benevolence would be found to characterize the specimens quite generally, and without regard to sex. Now, this bird, (Turdus Musicus,) the Song Thrush of Europe, is so nearly allied to (Turdus Melodus) the American variety, that the two were for a long time confounded among the Old World Naturalists; and indeed, Wilson was the first who drew the clear line of distinction between the two, and established ours as a distinct species. This bird was presented to us in the fall of the year, and as I had ventured to predict, that with the return of spring our new English friend would exhibit the same traits as his late American kinsman--poor Brownie-in feeding the first young bird of the family Turdinæ presented to it, I was all eagerness to have the spring come, that we might test the question fully.

It happened that a nearly fatal illness overtook me this winter, and I was compelled to seek for restoration in the South.

We arrived at Charleston very early in the spring, and by the time the mocking birds began to breed, I was able to travel far enough by railroad to reach Columbia, the lovely capital of the State, where, under the care of that distinguished naturalist, physician and gentleman, Professor Robert W. Gibbs, I was soon so far relieved as to be strong enough to get out on short excursions occasionally. My wife was then engaged in making the drawings of birds which are presented in this volume.

We had, in addition to our pet Englishman, alluded to, a fine male Southern mocking bird, which was not quite old

enough-though it sang very well-to furnish her with the necessary definition of plumage for a correct drawing.

Her ambition was to achieve, as nearly as possible, the butterfly airiness with which this marvellous bird floats upward and around upon the eddying ecstasies of its mighty song. It was, perhaps, a presumptuous attempt, but presumption has ever been one synonym of daring.

She made an hundred studies from the action of the caged bird, all to the same end, but none of them were entirely satisfactory. At last, the conviction came that we must have a specimen bird-not a "stuffed specimen," but one warm, and yet throbbing with the last pulses of life-that could be placed naturally in the position studied from the living bird, and sketched rapidly before it grew cold in the rigidity of absolute death.

When my wife announced to me that she must have such a specimen-that although she had studied the wild bird on the wing at a distance, and the tame bird near at hand, and had many good ideas of this movement in her sketches—yet there were numerous details of outline and finish which it was impossible to achieve without the warm specimen-I well recollect my despairing answer

"The fact is, I would rather face a panther on the bound, than shoot a mocking bird. I hope God will forgive me, but as I see clearly it must be done, it shall be done!"

This was said with a tragic earnest that must have been comical; for my wife said, with a quiet smile: "Well, now, hero as you think you are, I do not believe you can do it!" This conveyed an implication upon my marksmanship, of which I am, by the way, excessively proud, and also upon the firmness of my nerves, which could by no means be endured; so, with a sovereign wave of the hand and an extra straitening of my person, I left the room saying: "You shall see, madam, that my will can accomplish anything that is necessary!"

Fifteen minutes afterwards we were embarked in a light

buggy, attended by a bright mulatto boy, bound for the outskirts of the city-I with gun in hand, and my wife with a most provoking look of archness upon her child-like face. I was going forth slaying and to slay, and vowed that I had as soon kill a Bird of Paradise as a mouse, when the interests of science required it, and persisted-like the boy whistling in the dark-in convincing her that I should certainly shoot for her the finest specimen of a mocking bird that we could find. Indeed, for the purpose of re-assuring her smiling incredulity, I went on to remind her that she had seen me perform miracles with the rifle she had known me even to place six bullets in successive shots upon the space of my thumb nail-which I thrust forward to show her was not a

very large one! "Oh yes!"-she knew I was "a good rifle shot a wonderful rifle shot, if I insisted upon it but shooting at buffalo, deer, or even Camanches, was not, strictly speaking, shooting at mocking birds!"

"Nonsense! If a man knows how to hit one thing, he knows how to hit another!"

I felt somehow funny, I must confess, at this persistent dubiousness. It could not be that she thought that because I had become accustomed to shooting at large objects, that therefore I should miss the small ones as a matter of course. What could the woman be driving at ?-why, I could shoot a bird on the wing a great deal easier with the shot-gun, than a deer on the run with the rifle, which requires you, in order to bring him down, to place a single ball in a much smaller space than even the snipe would cover with its wing on its flight. She cannot mean that I am not a good marksman, for that she knows I am!

Hah! there is a mocking bird, well known in all this region as a magnificent singer. See him bounding up from the top of that pear tree inside the garden. The people will all curse me, I know, for slaying the angel of song in their neighborhood; but then I hope to make peace with them in

explaining to them that it was a necessity of science and its accompanying art.

The buggy was stopped, and out I sprang. He was but a short distance off, swimming and bounding on "the billows of sweet sound." My wife said, as I left her:

"Be sure you get him, he is a splendid creature, just the specimen that I want."

"Yes, you shall see!" said I, faintly. I walked up towards him. He did not observe me, he was too much absorbed in his hymn. I was now within twenty paces of the low pear tree, yet he soared and floated unobservant of the stalking murder in his front; he knew no evil in this hospitable land, and music had been "plate of mail" to him. I pointed my gun at him three times, but always I would never see the end of the barrel, for my eyes grew thick with tears. I could not see him, he was-" hidden in the light "-of music.

I tried, in the desperation of my will, to pull the trigger in that direction, but the gun would not go off. I could not make it go, and found that somehow, it was only on halfcock. Even then, after it was on full-cock, and the beautiful creature undauntedly floated and sang, I found another pretext for dodging my boasted inexorableness. I saw the female fly into the same tree, though lower down, and came to the instantaneous conclusion that as they must be building there, it would be an unpardonable profanity for me to shoot the male under such circumstances. I went back to the buggy, and although my wife attempted hysterically, to keep up her bantering tone, and vowed that if I did not shoot her a mocking bird, she would do it herself, because "she must have it!" yet I felt that her voice trembled in this assertion of the inevitable requisitions of art, and not another word was spoken between us as we drove back to our hotel.

A week had passed, and still her studies made it more apparent that we must have a fresh slain specimen, to enable her to complete the drawing contemplated.

At last, upon one of my well days, we were transported to