abundant there than in other places; yet it would be difficult to find a piece of ground of the same extent in the country proper, where all is silent and there are no human crowds, with so large a bird population. They are more numerous in Kew than elsewhere, in spite of the noise and the people, because they are partially protected there from their human persecutors. It is a joy to visit the gardens in spring, as much to hear the melody of the birds as to look at the strange and lovely vegetable forms. On a June evening with a pure sunny sky, when the air is elastic after rain, how it rings and palpitates with the fine sounds that people it, and which seem infinite in variety! Has England, burdened with care and long estranged from Nature, so many sweet voices left? What aerial chimes are those wafted from the leafy turret of every tree? What clear, choral songs--so wild, so glad? What strange instruments, not made with hands, so deftly touched and soulfully breathed upon? What faint melodious murmurings that float around us, mysterious and tender as the lisping of leaves? Who could be so dull and exact as to ask the names of such choristers at such a time! Earthly names they have, the names we give them, when they visit us, and when we write about them in our dreary books; but, doubtless, in their brighter home in cloudland they are called by other more suitable appellatives. Kew is exceptionally favoured for the reason mentioned, but birds are also abundant where there are no hired men with red waistcoats and brass buttons to watch over their safety. Why do they press so persistently around us; and not in London only, but in every town and village, every house and cottage in this country? Why are they always waiting, congregating as far from us as the depth of garden, lawn, or orchard will allow, yet always near as they dare to come? It is not sentiment, and to be translated into such words as these: "Oh man, why are you unfriendly towards us, or else so indifferent to our existence that you do not note that your children, dependants, and neighbours cruelly persecute us? For we are for peace, and knowing you for the lord of creation, we humbly worship you at a distance, and wish for a share in your affection." No; the small, bright soul which is in a bird is incapable of such a motive, and has only the lesser light of instinct for its guide, and to the birds' instinct we are only one of the wingless mammalians inhabiting the earth, and with the cat and weasel are labelled "dangerous," but the ox and horse and sheep have no such label. Even our larger, dimmer eyes can easily discover the attraction. Let any one, possessing a garden in the suburbs of London, minutely examine the foliage at a point furthest removed from the house, and he will find the plants clean from insects; and as he moves back he will find them increasingly abundant until he reaches the door. Insect life is gathered thickly about us, for that birdless space which we have