bats of robins. Nor do they trespass on their neighbors with idle curiosity. That butterflies should mysteriously migrate in great clouds, moving against the wind across wide waters, and even tempt the ocean itself with nothing more definite than the horizon before them as a resting-place, may set the inquisitive crow thinking, or furnish Humboldt with matter for long conjecturing; but the mynas would express no surprise at the phenomenon. They waste no time wondering with others why the wagtail so continuously wags its tail, nor would they vex the Syrian coney with idle questions as to its preference for rocky places. Such things have set others a-thinking, and would make the leaf-loving squirrel silly with surprise; but the Essene myna! — “Let the world revolve,” he says; “we are here to work, and in the name of the Prophet — worms.” He comes of a race of poor antecedents, and has no lineage worth boasting of. The crow has Greek and Latin memories; and for the antiquity of the sparrow we have the testimony of Holy Writ. It is true that in the stories of India the myna has frequent and honorable mention; but the authors speak of the hill-bird — a notable fowl, with strange powers of mimicry, and always a favorite with the people, — and not of the homely Quaker bird who so diligently searches our grass-plots, and may be seen, from dawn to twilight, busy at his appointed work, the consumption of little grubs. The lust of the green parrot for orchard brigandage, or of the proud-stomached king-crow for battle with his kind, are as whimsical caprices, fancies of the moment, when compared to the steady assiduity with which this Puritan bird pursues the object of his creation. And the result is that the myna has no wit. Like the Germans, he is incompara-
