498 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



specting which a breath of suspicion as to him had never been en- 

 tertained. This day's successful foray led to his losing his entire 

 store, no doubt in the midst of his triumphal rejoicing. 



" His thieving propensities seemed to gather strength from this 

 period ; but I have little doubt many articles which were lost were 

 set down to his account without sufficient evidence that he was the 

 thief. A valuable brooch which belonged to a lady who was on a 

 visit with my mother was at length lost, and every finger pointed 

 to « Jack ' as the thief ; this charge acquired probability from the 

 fact that he had on the previous day overturned and destroyed a very 

 valuable writing-desk in her room while examining too anxiously 

 some of the silver ornaments of its bottles ; an order was forthwith 

 issued by my father that a cage must be made for him, and the ab- 

 solute liberty he had heretofore enjoyed somewhat curtailed. I sub- 

 mitted the more cheerfully to this order as his flights from home 

 were now becoming obviously longer, and on one or two occasions 

 he had not returned all night ; and although at these times he made 

 his appearance next morning hungry and cold and with a very rue- 

 ful aspect, yet I was beginning to fear that he would at length ac- 

 quire the habits necessary for shifting for himself, and stay away al- 

 together. Accordingly he was caged ; at first he furiously attacked 

 the wooden bars of the cage and broke some of them, but in places 

 so scattered, that in no one place did he succeed in making a breach 

 large enough for his exit. He pined very much at the confinement, 

 and the beauty of his plumage was much deteriorated, so that I at 

 length began to let him fly about : his delight on these occasions 

 was excessive and often laughably expressed ; but his distress when 

 again seized on to be returned to his cage was at least equally 

 strongly expressed . He used to screech long and loudly, and resist 

 with beak and talon ; hence he soon began when liberated to fly 

 straight off and remain away for several hours. In one of these 

 rambles, a woman returning from Cork was astonished to see him 

 stand so tamely on the public road beside a small pond at which he 

 occasionally drank ; she came near him and held out a herring to- 

 wards him, which he very thankfully began to eat, when she secured 

 him, cut one of his wings, and on reaching her home put him among 

 some poultry, who beat him most unmercifully. It was four or five days 

 before I was able to discover his prison, the woman living three or 

 four miles off; and when I did, and had paid a few shillings for his 

 ransom, he came home in most piteous plight ; his spirit was quite 

 broken, his plumage much injured and dingy, and except for the 

 well-known ' Jack ' and one or two other words, chiefly Irish, which 

 he pronounced, I should have doubted or disbelieved his identity. I 

 however pulled the feathers of his wings (which were mere stumps 

 on one side), and by care he was beginning to recover his vivacity ; 

 when, attempting to drink at a barrel, in which, when he could fly, 

 he was in the habit of splashing, he fell in, and was drowned before 

 his danger was discovered. I never felt so bereaved as upon the 

 death of poor ' Jack.' " 



At the performance of the Maid and the Magpie in Belfast Thea- 



