TRANSIENT GUESTS IN THE BIRD-ROOM. 137 



afraid ; he ate from the fingers and grew quite 

 tame, but he never seemed to know enough to 

 go home. Even when evidently very hungry 

 he would stand before his wide-open door, 

 where one step would take him into his beloved 

 grass thicket, and yet that one step he would 

 not take. When his hunger became intoler- 

 able he ran around the room, circled about his 

 cage, looking in, recognizing his food -dishes, 

 and trying eagerly to get between the wires to 

 reach them ; yet when he came before the open 

 door he would stand and gaze, but never go in. 

 He sometimes passed three or four hours in this 

 senseless performance, and it was always a 

 trouble to get him home. After five months' 

 trial, during which he displayed no particular 

 intelligence, and never learned to enter his 

 cage, he passed out of the bird-room, but not 

 into a store. 



One habit in which this bird indulged was 

 most attractive. It looked like a sort of dance. 

 With both wings beating rapidly, extended 

 their broadest, he gave little hops, not more 

 than two or three inches from the floor, and in 

 this way went all around the room when he 

 happened to be out. If in his cage when the 

 notion seized him, he danced all around in that 

 small space. I never tired of watching this 

 most graceful and beautiful flying dance. 



