ia. The
faculty have, however, on this point piped to us in vain, and it is
not at all in consequence of their advice that those who luxuriate
in early agriculture adopt that system of hygiene, any more than the
birds, who, as we have remarked, are first up and out, and who, at
this season, in flat defiance of all medical rules, adopt a purely
animal diet. Later, long after Lent, their food is varied with fruits
and seeds, but never to such an extent as to amount to vegetarianism.
This carnivorous taste ranks high in the "charm of earliest birds" so
interesting to the cultivator. He, as a rule, is not wrapped up in
the strawberry or the cherry that in the fulness of time comes to
be levied on, in very moderate percentage, by a few of his musical
associates. We do not forget that the blackbird has a weakness for
planted maize, and that the quota of the cornhill is very truly and
safely stated in the doggerel--

One for de blackbird, one for de crow,
Two for de cut-worm, and two for to grow.

The cut-worm is here correctly defined as the enemy, while the excise
claimed by the birds is head-money for his extirpation. An adaptation
of this instructive couplet to gardening for the guidance of those of
us who do not farm, but garden in a small way, would naturally enlarge
the allowance of the cut-worm. From the more limited demesne the crow
and the grakle are generally excluded. What is their loss is
the cut-worm's gain. Nowhere does he run (or burrow) riot more
successfully than in old gardens. Living in darkness, from an apparent
consciousness that his deeds are evil, he seems to be fully advised of
all that goes on above ground. One would fancy that he has a complete
system of subterranean telegraphs, like those coming into vogue in
Europe. He learns within a few hours or minutes of every new lot of
plants sprouting from the seed or set out from the hotbed. Upon both
he sets systematically to work, following his row with a precision and
thoroughness at once admirable and exasperating. You go out of a May
afternoon, and with the tenderest care establish in their summer homes
your very choicest plants. Reverse "One counted them at break of day,
and when the sun set where were they?" and the tale that greets you
the next morning is told. Did the spoiler need them for food, you
would be partly reconciled to his proceedings, or at least would know
how to frame some sort of an excuse for them. But he merely divides
the su