Twice a song-sparrow came, bathed in the lotus-tub, and, when not foraging in the weedy corners, sang its old-fashioned song, now so seldom heard within town limits. The bird gave me two valuable hints as to garden management. Water is a necessity to birds as well as to any other form of life, and shelter is something more than a mere attraction. Was it not because the birds happened to be provided with them to-day that I had, as I have had the summer long, more birds than my neighbors? How seldom do we see the coral honeysuckle, and how generally the trumpet-creeper has given place to exotic vines of far more striking bloom, but, as will appear, of less utility! If the old-time vines that I have mentioned bore less showy flowers, they had at least the merit of attracting humming-birds, that so grandly rounded out our complement of summer birds. These feathered fairies are not difficult to see, even though so small, and, if so inclined, we can always study them to great advantage. They become quite tame, and in the old-fashioned gardens were always a prominent feature by reason of their numbers. They are not forever on the wing, and when preening their feathers let the sunshine fall upon them, and we have emeralds and rubies that cost nothing, but are none the less valuable because of this. In changing the botanical features of our yards we have had but one thought, gorgeous flowers; but was it wise to give no heed to the loss of birds as the result? I fancy there are many who would turn with delight from formal clusters of unfamiliar shrubs, however showy, to a gooseberry hedge or a lilac thicket with song-sparrows and a cat-bird hidden in its shade. We have been unwise in this too radical change. We have abolished bird-music in our eagerness for color, gaining a little, but losing more. We have paid too clear, not for a whistle, but for its loss. But it is not too late. Carry a little of the home forest to our yards, and birds will follow it. And let me here wander to an allied matter, that of the recently-established Arbor Day. What I have just said recalls it.