of our nursery rhymes, the only thought of which is about something good to eat. Notice the following:
Look at the white breasted crows overhead.
My father shot once and ten crows tumbled dead.
When boiled or when fried they taste very good,
But skin them, I tell you, there's no better food.
In imagination I can see the reader raise his eyebrows and mutter, "Do the Chinese eat crows?" while at the same time he has been singing all his life about what a "dainty dish" "four and twenty blackbirds" would make for the "king," without ever raising the question as to whether blackbirds are good eating or not.
We note another feature of all nursery rhymes in the additions made by the various persons through whose hands,—or should we say, through whose mouths they pass.
18
