But here I must close my notes of birds, lest their actions and their ways, so various and so pleasing, should lure me on to protract “My tedious tale through many a page;” for I have always been an admirer of these elegant creatures, their notes, their nests, their eggs, and all the economy of their lives; nor have we, throughout the orders of creation, any beings that so continually engage our attention as these our feathered companions. Winter takes from us all the gay world of the meads, the sylphs that hover over our flowers, that steal our sweets, that creep, or gently wing their way in glittering splendor around us; and of all the miraculous creatures that sported their hour in the sunny beam, the winter gnat[57] (tipula hiemalis) alone remains to frolic in some rare and partial gleam. The myriads of the pool are dormant, or hidden from our sight; the quadrupeds, few and wary, veil their actions in the glooms of night, and we see little of them; but birds are with us always, they give a character to spring, and are identified with it; they enchant and amuse us all summer long with their sports, animation, hilarity, and glee; they cluster round us, suppliant in the winter of our year, and, unrepining through cold and want, seek their scanty meal amidst the refuse of the barn, the stalls of the cattle, or at the doors of our house; or, flitting hungry from one denuded and bare spray to another, excite our pity and regard; their lives are patterns of gaiety, cleanliness, alacrity, and joy.