What though a ' sparrow' may sometimes fall to the ground at a long shot,' by way ,of improvement,', can such occasional instances he claimed to cause their decrease to so lamentable an extent as to demand for their protection an invocation to law-makers! What though our cities may turn out a few aspiring young Winkles on a pleasant summer's afternoon, who, with immense preparation, sally into the remote wilderness of the suburbs,.and wake the echoes with a reckless disregard of powder and shot, is their destructiveness by. any means commensurate with the noise they make? I trow not. Their intended victim, unharmed and unter-xified, flies chirruping <to the next bush in very mockery of their aim to bag him. It is easier to denounce the boys for wholesale destruction of small birds, .than it is to convict them of it, and as popular sympathy is against them, the denunciation as easily passes unquestioned for fact.

The other cause of the decrease of the number of small birds, and consequent increase of insects, - the destruction of our forests, - I believe to be equally groundless. The effect of this destruction is simply to bring in new species of each, and probably quite as many birds, and no more insects than existed before. The robin, the blue-bird, the chipping bird, the swallow, the marten, the wren, the ground sparrow, the oriole, and the many others which enliven our farms and residences, are not found in the forests. They follow in the track of civilization and appear with man and orchards. Alas, too, and so do canker-worms, caterpillars, and curculio. If it is correct, then, to say that the destruction of the .forests causes an inordinate increase of insects, it is to the extent only that beech and maples give way to apple and plum trees, and leave destroyers.of fruit in place of others that preyed upon the trees of the forest.

And now one word as to the utility of birds. It is .a common belief thatthey are great benefactors of man in the destruction of pestiferous insects. To this belief I am an inexorable infidel. Who over saw one of the whole race touch the caterpillar, which, at this seasan, infests our orchards; or that other kindred nuisance, which, later in the season, appears on all trees indiscriminately, often wholly enveloping .them in its mighty net-work; or the slimy slug; or a single.living atom of the endless legion of plant lice; or -the turnep Jen; or the striped, cucumber thug; or that most vile of sll-disgusting creatures, the luge black pumpkin bug; or, finally, the eurculio? .What one of the whole feathered race was .ever known to harm a hair on the head-of any one of these eternally recurring abominations? My own attention has lor years been directed to this discovery, and that one among them all .which is entitled to our gratitude, even to this extent, remains a rare avis still,and Barnum oan find another "Nightingale," sooner than add this marvel to -hjs collection. But, sir, individual instances of this kind amount to nothing, if yon can .proves thousand of them.

Show me that entire species of bird, the whole end and aim of whose .existence is to war exclusively upon one of the above races of insects, and, for the good-will they manifest, I will .join you in prayers for legal enactments for their projection, if need be; though my feith in the extermination -of the vermin, as the eonse-.quence of their enmity, -would not be of that buoyant nature effectual to sustain one's -head above water, when the remembrance should come over me that angle worms are still plenty, in spite of the determined persistence of the whole generation of robins in the apparently single purpose to gormandise them all. Nevertheless, sir, the birds find in me a zealous protector, and they know it. In my own little domain, they are almost as fearless of me and mine, as are the chickens themselves. The pugnacious little wren 'takes up his habitation in a nook over the front door, and assumes all the bustling importance of one well to do in the world, scolding tremendously at all in-oomers and out-goers, by vir-4ue, to be sure, of his being the lawfully taxable proprietor of the premises; the robin hurries down from the tree to pick up the worm I toss him in compensation for the Jenny Lind touches he half strangles'himself in trying to imitate, and foods confidingly within a few feet of me in-the garden; while I am fairly obliged to walk around the little chipping -bird at the kitchen door, to avoid treading on him, so tame have they all become in consequence of gentle deportment towards them.

Birds appreciate kindness quickly, and seem even to-comprehend the pleasant words that are spoken to them. Though I owe them nothing for preserving my plums and cherries, yet woe to the urchin 'that molests them within the boundaries of my principality. Their cheerful companionship,-their graceful -sportings, their varied attempts to express their joy fulness in song, from the ludicrous enthusiasm with which one note is continually cachinated, to very tolerable approaches to successful modulation, give them social claims upon me which compensate a thousand fold for all they destroy, and all they do not. J C. H.

Syracuse June 1, 1852.

[J.C. H. is a heretic - an unbeliever in all written creeds - but he offers no suggestions from his own store-house of experiences. Since he repudiates -the alphabet that others •have found tolerably useful, is be not bound to give his own system of short-bsnd? (En].