Does any theological reason exist why there should not be in some blessed planet or other a Bird Heaven, a realm where the green gates of Spring are forever opening and the fruits of Summer are for ever ripening, whose skies are full of the downiest of clouds and the softest of songs?

Were I to be constituted the Peter of the gate of that Paradise, there are very few birds to which free entrance should not be given, except Cochin China, Shanghai, and Bramah Pootrah hens; the raven should be admitted for the sake of the poet, and even the owl should have a hollow tree all to itself, and a meadow of mice for its portion; but for prowling cats and naughty boys, for snares and for fowlers, there should be no salvation. No early frosts, no chilling rains, the cherries all free, and great fields of grain for the pigeons. Birds, everywhere birds! Not a bush but would have a song in it, all trees would be "singing trees," and all nests sacred as so many little arks of the Covenant.

Wicker baskets full of pearls with life in them, emeralds with song in them, swinging from bending bough, hidden in the grass, rocking among the rushes, like the little Moses of old, and everybody as loving as Pharaoh's daughter; no serpent in this Eden to charm; no sky scarred with arrows, no plumage ruffled by storm—wouldn't it be a love of a place, that Bird Heaven?

Just a few people that should be forever saying over to themselves, "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without Him," might live there, and the eaves, the chimneys and the peak of the barn-rafters should be full of the twitter of swallows, and the martin-box should never be untenanted. The gate-post should have a cleft for a wren to dwell in; the orchard be filled with the homes of the robin and goldfinch, and the currant-bushes thickly peopled with sparrows; nightingales should sing the night out, and the larks go heavenward to make song in the morning. The plaint of the whip-poor-will should be there, and the mourning of the wood-doves heard from the twilight of the groves. Flotillas of white sea-fowl should float upon the smooth waters, and the mote below the edge of the cloud at anchor far up in the noon, should darken into shape, for an eagle should be there in the sunshine. The old tree-trunks in the pasture should be the homestead of blue-birds all the year long, and the lilacs, like the burning bush of the mountain, should be a-blaze with the wings of red-robin and oriole, and be not consumed.

Time would forget to go on, and would tarry with June in such a midst. And the poet who so plaintively asked,

would find them there, with the sweet old song that charmed an humbler world. And, may be, we should learn the bird language then, and would know what the robins were saying, and the chirping of sparrows be turned to the choicest of English.

There in the meadow, all the days in the year, Robert o' Lincoln should ring his chime of bells; there in the leafy cloisters, "Bob White" should be incessantly called; there on the nodding thistle-blossoms, the yellow-bird should ride as the summer wind went gently by.

And what would a June be without roses? And so the sod should be enameled, and the woods should not be lonely for them. The timid children of the Rainbow, that fled before the plowshare, should grow bold again, and start up like young quails from their hiding, and cluster round the door-stone, and swing themselves up to the roof by green shrouds of their own, and swing themselves down the damp, mossy sides of the spring, and be numbered with the household.

And here, to this Bird Heaven, one should come who all his earthly life long was a loving child of Nature; who saw in the feather fallen from the blue bird in its flight the tinting of the Hand that touched the tented sky with azure; in the red bird's glowing wing, the finger-prints of Him who wove a ribbon of the falling rain, and bound therewith the cloudy brow of storm: Audubon should come and go at will. The freedom of the planet should be his.

And the world adjoining, and lying in full sight, should be a Tophet for the slayers of robins and sparrows; the men whom want of worth makes "fellows"; who lurk about the woods, in the yet unraveled leaf, and prowl in the orchards white with the sweet drift of apple-blossoms, and murder the builders of the homes of song; the ruffians who, in bright top-boots and game-bag cap-a-pie, return elated with two dead blue-birds and a lark without a head, who break a thrush's wing, and misname it "sport," and pass disguised as men. And in that Tophet they should play Nimrod, with kicking muskets shooting empty air; the crows should live with them, and Nero to fiddle for them, and a filer of saws for orchestra; and so, like Alexander the coppersmith, they should be rewarded "according to their works."

Who can imagine a birdless June, or could love a grove rich as Vallombrosa in leafy beauty, that sheltered no bird, rustled with no wings, along whose green corridors floated no little song?

With what elegance of form, grace of motion, brilliancy of coloring, and sweetness of utterance do they fill the summer world. How like carrier-doves are they, forever bringing messages of peace from the bosom of Nature even to our own; and a wintry thing indeed is the happiness that has no birds in it.

As he can not be altogether evil who cherishes a flower, makes friends with the little violet until it pleads for him, so they who love birds for their beauty and song have yet something in themselves that is lovely.

And this lingering trace of an Eden-born nature gives to the denizens of the air a commercial value beyond that of the provision market. Who would think, without thinking, that more than seventeen thousand song birds are annually sold in New York? The linnets, finches and thrushes of the Hartz Mountains, the canaries from Antwerp and Brussels, the skylarks from English fields, and the painted sparrows from Java are among the multitude. Seventy-five thousand dollars expended in a single city every year for birds, not to be grilled or fricasseed, but to be admired for their beauty or loved for their song! Here are the figures for a single year of this graceful trade in the city of New York:

In 1873, ninety-five thousand canaries were sold in America—birds enough to make a golden cloud and hide the sun at high noon. And how kind it was of Chief Justice Chase to decide, in 1872, that in the intent of the law imposing a tax upon imported animals, birds were not animals, and so the wings and the warblers enter the United States duty free!

Who can help following those wicker cages with their little tenants, as, borne here and there, they make "the winter of our discontent" a summer; to some gloomy room with its one window and its narrow strip of sky; to the chamber of the invalid and the garret of poverty. There, under the dim sky-light, and there, by the one window, and there, by the couch of languishing, the captives sit and sing—sing, though no "sweet South" is blowing, and no soft sky is bending, and no green branch is rustling; sit and sing while the fall rains beat upon the panes; while the snows drift white upon the threshold; and then, when, through the smoky air and the dull window, there comes a gush of sunshine, what a burst of the old woodland melody there is, till the listening heart is full of the sweet thoughts of summer, and so they sing out sorrow's night, and "joy cometh in the morning."

It is with a sort of regret, shared perhaps by nobody else, that I end these sketches. We always get into the habit of things, and habit comes to rest easily, like an old garment. I do not now remember much of anything I was not a little sorry to part with, except a jumping toothache. But the best thing I can do, after wishing my readers a pleasant trip by the World on Wheels and a pleasant Station at last, is to

SWITCH OFF.

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Old-Time Pictures
AND
SHEAVES OF RHYME.

By BENJ. F. TAYLOR.

John G. Whittier writes:—"It gives me pleasure to see the poems of B. F. Taylor, issued by your house in a form worthy of their merit. Such pieces as the 'Old Village Choir,' 'The Skylark,' 'The Vane on the Spire,' and 'June,' deserve their good setting."

J. G. Holland writes:—"I have spent many hours over your book. The 'Old Time Picture' is crowded with verbal felicities, and the closing portion of it as soul-stirring as the voice of a trumpet. * * 'A Winter's Psalm' stands out on these pages with the claim of being your most perfect poem. I have read it again and again. * * It has a natural unfolding; it is at home in its rhythm; it is symmetrical; it is dignified; it is very nearly perfect."

Lakeside Monthly:—"Of all the Christmas poems in reach of our readers, let us commend as without compeer the thrilling, tender, and most musical poem, 'The Child and the Star.'"

San Francisco Bulletin:—"A poet he is in the true sense; a singer of songs so full of tenderness and melody that their memory lingers like a delicious fragrance. Several of his lyrics have become classic. * * His 'River of Time' is one of the most perfect poems in the language, original in conception, full of beautiful imagery, grandly sonorous in rhythm."

St. Louis Dispatch:—"Mr. Taylor is a word-painter unsurpassed in America. His style is rare, quaint, full of images as a brook of pebbles, and his rhythm waves and undulates as softly and as sensuously as the wind that sways the summer wheat. * * In the fields he sings the songs of the spring, and the passion flowers, of the roses, and the summer time. His are the birds'-notes. He interprets the quaint, low tune of the busy wren, the soaring snatches of the sky-lark, the liquid language of the oriole, the ever-sad and questioning call of the partridge, and the pheasant's everlasting monotone. He makes beautiful pictures. He gives one champagne to drink—strong, effervescing, delightful."

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PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS & CO., CHICAGO.

"The man who can secure a wide reading for this volume will do an amount of good second only to that done by him who wrote it."—Northwestern Christian Advocate.

Getting On in the World;
Or, HINTS ON SUCCESS IN LIFE.

By WILLIAM MATHEWS, LL.D.,
Prof. of Rhetoric and English Literature, University of Chicago.

"Beautifully printed, and handsomely bound" in cloth.—$2.25

Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., LL.D., Pres't of Yale College: "A book in which there is abundant matter of great interest."

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Rev. J. M. Gregory, LL.D., President of Illinois Industrial University: "It is one of the best books of the class that I have ever seen. It fills me with a sort of wonder by its wealth of incident and appropriate anecdote. * * The book is eminently wholesome; it is more—it is a tonic of the most vigorous sort, and I shall advise all of our young men to read it."

Edwin P. Whipple, Esq., the distinguished critic, in the Boston Globe: * * "The present volume of Prof. Mathews indicates the nicety and the extent of his English studies, in the richness and variety of his quotations. His subjects are eminently practical, and he treats them in a practical way; but then what wealth of illustration he brings in from English poets, dramatists, divines, lawyers, and jurists! The anecdotes alone of the book should make it popular."

Rev. Dr. Curry, Professor of English Literature, Richmond College, Va. (in the Religious Herald): "Prof. Mathews has given us a book of rare interest. We have read it with delight and profit. The style is clear and charming. The subjects are eminently practical. The pertinent illustrations show a wide and careful reading. This volume places the author among the best English essayists. The young man who reads this volume will have his pulse quickened, his moral vision clarified, his faith and purpose strengthened."

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