A Box of Birds.

Down in the forest something stirs! Deep in the ferro-foliaged, concrete-castellated jungles of Jumbledom, high in the filigreed forests of Finance, down in the dim caves of Commerce, out on the paved and grassless glades of Citydom where the shrill call of the news-piper vies with the wild shriek of the motor-jar and the scream of the savage brake-band, a strange unrest has come upon the birds of boodledom.

There is a feverish fluffing of feathers, a preening of pinions, a wiffling of wings and an overhaul of the fuselage as though in preparation for flight or feast—or both.

Even the old “oof” owl, moping boodleously in his cell of percentance is heard to hoot a gruff acknowledgment of something that stirs within his gilt-edged obscurities.

Out in the leafless labyrinths of Noisedom there is a twittering and twinking on the roosts. The smart young game-cocks, the tweeting type-warblers flitting from job to job, the counter-flappers flipping among the thickets of lip-stick, the garrulous gad-wits, the solemn secretary birds, the roosting stool-pigeons, ground birds and high-fliers, birds of a feather and birds without a feather to fly with, tailor birds, sailor birds, gay warblers, game birds and tame birds, near-birds and queer birds—all the species which roost and boost in the human highways and skyways—seem infected with a strange fever of fervour. There is a whirring and stirring in the concrete coppices and crags. There is a fluttering in the domains of Domesticity where thousands of homing-birds are preparing to moult their plumes on the ocean's edge, to abandon their family trees, to disown the nest-egg of dull discretion, and to flap a flippant wing in far flight.

Already the first tin-trumpeting of fledglings is heard on the hills of Suburbia, heralding the season of peace, plenty and youthful bedlam, when the seed of goodwill is broadcast over the land and the pickings are plenteous.

All the birds of the air Are
a'flyin’ and a'bobbin',
For they've heard it's the season
Of social hob-nobbin'.
All the roosts are a'throb
With something impending,
There's hopping and hoping
And business—unbending.
Ne'er a bird of the air
Is a'sighin’ or sobbin',

For there's sun in the eye
And the heart is a'throbbin',
They sing on the bough
Of the old Christmas tree,
Of wide open spaces
And things that are free.
The bill-birds are singing,
A song without words,
For ‘tis Christmas and life
Is a fair “box of birds.”