THIRD DAY. SENEX, JULIAN, SIMON PARA DICE. Time-The peep of day. Julian. What a lovely morning! we are up before the Sun. Senex. He will rise in ten minutes, if the calendar tell truly. I am glad we are stirring so early, for sunrise at this season should tempt every man from his bed. What says Dan Chaucer ? "For May wol have no slogardie a-night, The seson priketh every gentil herte, And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte, The notes of birds alone break the hushy stillness that reigns around us. The lark, F the throstle, the ouzel, and the whole tribe of songsters have commenced their hosannahs. Every insect is on the move, the grasshopper bestirs himself, and the spider looks out on his dew-bespangled tracery. The morning-star is fading before the approach of day. The owl, weary of nightprowling, hurries away to his retreat in the old barn; and the magpie in yonder elm, with his pert chatter, provokes the jay in the thicket :— "The jay, the rook, the daw, And each harsh pipe (discordant heard alone) J. What a strange nest the magpie builds ! I remember, when a boy, trying to rob one and scratching my hands sadly. S. It is certainly a curious piece of bird-architecture, and shows the superior cunning of the pie to the rook and the crow. Piers Ploughman has something to say of its structure :— "I had wonder at whom, And wher the pye lerned In which she leyeth and bredeth. Sholde werche hir nestes to paye; If any mason made a molde thereto, The pie is a beautiful and cheerful bird: and though man resents severely his little larcenies, he yet loves to build near a homestead despite of ill-usage. J. The country people are at enmity, I believe, with all carrion-birds, and the pie is one of the most mischievous of this class. S. All birds are occasionally mischievous, but the good which many of them perform more than counterbalances the evil. Remember, I am no stickler for all the prejudice and superstition of my humble neighbours, who are often blindly wrong. There is some reason for their hostility to the crow and the pie; but the war of extermination which they carry on against many of the feathered race, can only be excused on the ground of ignorance and their attachment to old notions and prejudices, from which the better educated of the last century were not free. For instance, you will find them hereabouts destroy that beautiful and sagacious bird the starling, because they believe it kills the young pigeons. Now, the starling is an insectivorous bird, which must devour myriads of destructive creatures every season. They must be welcome visitors to flocks of sheep, about which we generally see them congregated, sometimes running on their backs and freeing them from the foul, ugly, and annoying tick which so often troubles that animal. Another bird, which is an especial favourite with me, is much persecuted by the country people, namely, the titmouse; and yet a pair of these little creatures, if undisturbed, will almost keep a fair-sized garden free from insects and reptiles. A friend of mine, who lives in the neighbourhood of London, occupies one of a row of houses, the gardens of which, as usual, adjoin each other. His neighbour, a door or or two off, an idle fellow, often amuses himself by shooting the small birds, and last year he kept up this manly pastime so vigorously, that not even a sparrow could show itself on his premises. Summer came, and with it swarms of that destructive reptile the small green caterpillar, which literally ate up everything in the garden of the cockney sportsman. Not so with my friend's garden, the fruit in which was unusually fine and abundant,-a circumstance which he attributes entirely to the fact of a pair of the smaller species of titmouse having made |