134 Village Sketches :The Bird-Catcher. [FEB. 



cooing of doves, the screechings of owls, the squeakings of guinea-pigs, 

 and the eternal grinding of a barrel-organ, which a little damsel of eight 

 years old, who officiates under Robin as feeder and cleaner, turns round, 

 with melancholy monotony, to the loyal and patriotic tunes of Rule 

 Britannia and Gad save the King the only airs, as her master observes, 

 which are sure not to go out of fashion. 



Except this little damsel and her music, the apartment exhibits but 

 few signs of human habitation. A macaw is perched on the little table, 

 and a cockatoo chained to the only chair ; the roof is tenanted by a choice 

 breed of tumbler pigeons, and the floor cumbered by a brood of curious 

 bantams, unrivalled for ugliness. 



Here Robin dwells, in the midst of the feathered population, except 

 when he sallies forth at morning or evening to spread his nets for gold- 

 finches or bullfinches on the neighbouring commons, or to place his 

 trap-cages for the larger birds. Once or twice a year, indeed, he wan* 

 ders into Oxfordshire, to meet the great flocks of linnets, six or seven 

 hundred together, which congregate on those hills, and may be taken 

 by dozens ; and he has had ambitious thoughts of trying the great field 

 of Covent Garden. But in general he remains quietly at home. That 

 nest in the Soak is too precious a deposit to leave long ; and he is 

 seldom without some especial favourite to tend and fondle. At present, 

 the hen nightingale seems his pet ; the last was a white blackbird ; and 

 once he had a whole brood of gorgeous king-fishers, seven glorious 

 creatures, for whose behoof he took up a new trade, and turned fisher- 

 man, dabbling all day with a hand-net in the waters of the Soak. It 

 was the prettiest sight in the world to see them snatch the minnows 

 from his hand, with a shy mistrustful tameness, glancing their bright 

 heads from side to side, and then darting off like bits of the rainbow. 

 I had an entire sympathy with Robin's delight in his kingfishers. He 

 sold them to his chief patron, Mr. Jay, a little fidgetty old bachelor, 

 with a sharp face, a hooked nose, a brown complexion, and a full suit 

 of snuff-colour, not much unlike a bird himself; and that worthy gentle- 

 man's mismanagement and a frosty winter killed the kingfishers every 

 one. It was quite affecting to hear poor Robin talk of their death. But 

 Robin has store of tender anecdotes ; and any one who has a mind to cry 

 over the sorrows of a widowed turtle-dove, and to hear described to the 

 life her vermilion eye, black gorget, soft plumage, and plaintive note, 

 cannot do better than pay a visit to the garret in the Soak, and listen 

 for half an hour to my friend the bird-catcher. 



M. 



