1828.] The Bird-Catcher. 133 



but I have one, and a fine cock too, that I caught last spring just afore 

 building time. Two as healthy birds as ever were seen." 

 " Is the cock in song still ?" 



" Aye, Sir, in full song ; piping away jug, jug, jug, all the day and 

 half the night. I wish your honour would come and hear it." And, 

 with a promise to that effect, we parted, each our several ways ; we to 

 visit our friend, he to catch, if catch he could, a couple of woodlarks to 

 make Mrs. Bennet's villa look rural. 



Old Robin had not always been a bird-catcher. He had what is called 

 fallen in the world. His father had been the best-accustomed and most 

 fashionable shoemaker in the town of B., and Robin succeeded, in right 

 of eldership, to his house, his business, his customers, and his debts. 

 No one was ever less fitted for the craft. Birds had been his passion 

 from the time that he could find a nest or string an egg : and the 

 amusement of the boy became the pursuit of the man. No sooner was 

 he his own master than his whole house became an aviary, and his 

 whole time was devoted to breeding, taming, and teaching the feathered 

 race ; an employment that did not greatly serve to promote his success 

 as a cordwainer. He married ; and an extravagant wife, and a neglected, 

 and, therefore, unprosperous business, drove him more and more into the 

 society of the pretty creatures, whose company he had always so greatly 

 preferred to that of the two-legged unfeathered animal, called man. 

 Things grew worse and worse ; and at length poor Robin appeared in the 

 Gazette ruined, as his wife and his customers said, by birds : or, as he 

 himself said, by his customers and his wife. Perhaps there was some 

 truth on either side; at least, a thousand pounds of bad debts on 

 his books, and a whole pile of milliners and mantua-makers' bills, went 

 nigh to prove the correctness of his assertion. Ruined, however, he was ; 

 and a happy day it was for him, since his stock being sold, his cus- 

 tomers gone, and his prospects in trade fairly at an end, his wife (they 

 had no family) deserted him also, and Robin, thus left a free man, 

 determined to follow the bent of his genius, and devote the remainder of 

 his life to the breeding, catching, and selling of birds. 



For this purpose he hired an apartment in the ruinous quarter of B. 

 called the Soak, a high, spacious attic, not unlike a barn, which came 

 recommended to him by its cheapness, its airiness, and its extensive cage- 

 room ; and his creditors having liberally presented him with all the 

 inhabitants of his aviary, some of which were very rare and curious, as 

 well as a large assortment of cages, nets, traps, and seeds, he began his 

 new business with great spirit, and has continued it ever since with 

 various success, but with unabating perseverance, zeal, and good humour 

 a very poor and a very happy man. His garret in the Soak is one 

 of the boasts of B. ; all strangers go to see the birds and the bird-catcher, 

 and most of his visitors are induced to become purchasers, for there is 

 no talking with Robin on his favourite subject without catching a little 

 of his contagious enthusiasm. His room is quite a menagerie, some- 

 thing like what the feathered department of the ark must have been as 

 crowded, as numerous, and as noisy. 



The din is really astounding. To say nothing of the twitter of whole 

 legions of linnets, goldfinches, and canaries, the latter of all ages ; the 

 chattering and piping of magpies, parrots, jackdaws, and bullfinches, in 

 every stage of their education ; the deeper tones of blackbirds, thrushes, 

 larks, and nightingales, never fail to swell the chorus, aided by the 



