Synopsis

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room;And hermits are contented with their cells;And students with their pensive citadels:Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:In truth, the prison unto which we doomOurselves, no prison is: and hence for me,In sundry moods 't was pastime to be boundWithin the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,Should find brief solace there, as I have found.WORDSWORTH. Our Common and Garden are not an ideal field of operations for the student of birds. No doubt they are rather straitened and public. Other things being equal, a modest ornithologist would prefer a place where he could stand still and look up without becoming himself a gazing-stock. But "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps;" and if we are appointed to take our daily exercise in a city park, we shall very likely find its narrow limits not destitute of some partial compensations. This, at least, may be depended upon,—our disappointments will be on the rig...