28 THE BIRD OF SOLITUDE. 



room without fear, alighting on my chair, tak- 

 ing worms from the hand, trying to make 

 friends with an English song thrush, twice his 

 size, — meeting, by the way, with no response, 

 — and finding his way back to his cage without 

 trouble, which again is unusual. 



As with all birds, the.pincushion was a source 

 of interest to him, and I was interested to see 

 how differently from any other he treated the 

 obnoxious pinheads. He did not pounce upon 

 them, driving them farther in, as did the cat- 

 bird, but he seized each head in his bill, and 

 tried to jerk it out. This would have been 

 somewhat too successful, only that his efforts 

 were in a sidewise direction, and of course the 

 pins would not come. In a few days, however, 

 he learned how to manage them, when his great 

 pleasure was to pull them all out and throw 

 them on the floor, leaning over the edge of the 

 bureau to hear each one fall on the matting, 

 and then to go down himself, and pass each one 

 through his bill from head to point, exactly as 

 he did a meal-worm before swallowing it. The 

 stiffness of the pins discouraged him ; he never 

 tried to make a meal of them. 



His experience with the looking-glass was 

 most melancholy, till I covered it up, in pity. 



The instant he caught sight of himself, — of 

 his own reflection, rather, — he would drop his 



