ricks with us--one
whom they would perhaps call a philosopher.[1] Well, his own sense (if
he had any) told him that we could not live without air; so he left the
cork out, and went about his business; no doubt of much less consequence
than the lives of all us prisoners--but that they do not mind. But how
long were we prisoners? Why, as soon as ever we were out of the shell we
began to spin, and linked our webs so thick together that the
philosopher's bottle would hold us no longer. We climbed out in a crowd,
and spread our webs over the room, up to the very ceiling. I shall never
forget how the great booby stared when he saw us all climbing up our own
rope-ladders! I wonder if those great creatures are not sometimes caught
in webs spun by their fellow-creatures, and whether they are not
sometimes put by hundreds into a bottle without possessing any means of
escape? But I am but a child, and must live and learn before I talk more
freely. Long life to you, dear mother, and plenty of flies.

Yours ever, &c.

[Illustration: NIGHTINGALE.]

LETTER IV.

_FROM A YOUNG NIGHTINGALE TO A WREN._

Dated "Home Wood."

NEIGHBOUR,

When we last met you seemed very lively and agreeable, but you asked an
abundance of questions, and particularly wanted to know whether we
nightingales really do, as is said of us, cross the great water every
year, and return in the spring to sing in your English groves. Now, as I
am but young, I must be modest, and not prate about what I cannot as yet
understand. I must say, nevertheless, that I never heard my parents talk
of any particular long journey which they had performed to reach this
country, or that they should return, and take me and the rest of the
family with them, at this particular time or season. I know this, that I
never saw my parents fly further at one flight than from one side of a
field to another or from one grove to the next. Who are they who call
us "birds of passage"?[2] They certainly may know more of the extent of
the GREAT WATERS than we can, neighbour Wren; but have they considered
our powers, and the probability of what they assert? I am sure, if my
parents should call on me to go with them, I shall be flurried out of my
life. But it is my business to obey. I have so lately got my feathers,
that I cannot be a proper judge of the matter. As to the swallows and
many other birds going to a vast distance, there is no wonder in that,
if you look at their wings; but h