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The effects of conifer-release alternatives on songbird densities (determined by territory mapping, mist netting, and banding) in four young (four to seven year old) spruce plantations were examined. Twenty to 38 (block dependent) species bred on each treatment block. Post-treatment data revealed no major treatment-related changes in breeding bird species composition. The mean density of all birds decreased from 6.9 pairs ha−1 pre-treatment, to 6.3 pairs ha−1 in the first post-treatment growing season (P > 0.05). Mean densities of the 11 most common species increased by 0.35 ha−1 on the control plots during the first post-treatment growing season, but decreased on treated plots by 1.1 ha−1 (brush saw), 1.6 ha−1 (Silvana Selective), 0.14 ha−1 (Release®) and 0.72 ha−1 (Vision®). Following the conifer-release treatments, Chestnut-sided Warbler (Dendroica pensylvanica) had lower (P

THE WORLDS OF LITERATURE AND POLITICS today are in some ways dramatically different-the one critical, devoted to spirit and sensibility, and experienced in private affairs; the other constructive, and devoted largely to the practical affairs of the various groups to which each of us belongs. And yet the two worlds are not entirely dissimilar; they intersect at points. For instance, unlike that of science, the business of both is conducted in versions of the vernacular that are widely understood by lay persons, and in both realms there are speakers who require our assent to their views of the world for their success. The evidence as to whether the two worlds are compatible is also mixed. Politics, after a period of dwindling favor, has in the last decade or so become an acceptable topic in literary discussion. The converse, however, does not hold. To bring literature or the literary point of view into a discussion of politics is in most cases to run the risk of being declared irrelevant or subversive. This judgment is not without some reason. Literature's own Auden, after all, told the world that poetry makes nothing happen. Although Auden meant the remark as praise, its truth-that art is primarily reflexive, and not pragmatic-easily turns into criticism of the remoteness of literature from public affairs. The charge of subversiveness also comes from within as well as from without, from the British novelist and physicist and man of affairs C. P. Snow, who in his provocative essays on the "two cultures" argued that literary people's obsession with private experience makes them selfish and overly pessimistic about the prospects for the improvement of the human condition. Yet, while there is some truth in the charges of irrelevance and subversiveness, they do not tell the whole story. Their truth is not necessarily more important than that found in contradicting remarks-such as Solzhenitsyn's in The First Circle, for instance, that a great writer is like a (much needed) second government to his country. A properly broad view of the literary perspective on politics, then, must acknowledge all three truths, agnostic, negative, and positive, and explain something of the relations between them. I will attempt in this essay to describe such a perspective by answering the question: How might literary training-that is, learning to live and work in and with literature-affect, for better and for worse, one's view of the world of politics? For the purposes of discussion, I will make two assumptions: first, that the generalization "literary person' is a meaningful one; and, second, that the most pervasive effects on literary people's view of politics are a result of their doing what