ON BOSTON COMMON. 29 



said to have been famous, — or at all events 

 notorious, if any old-fashioned reader be dis- 

 posed to insist upon this all but obsolete dis- 

 tinction. His triumph, such as it was, had al- 

 ready begun when I first discovered him, for he 

 was then perched well up in an elm, while a 

 mob of perhaps forty men and boys were pelt- 

 ing him with sticks and stones. Even in the 

 dim light of a cloudy November afternoon he 

 seemed quite bewildered and helpless, making 

 no attempt to escape, although the missiles were 

 flying past him on all sides. The most he did 

 was to shift his perch when he was hit, which, 

 to be sure, happened pretty often. Once he 

 was struck so hard that he came tumbling to- 

 ward the ground, and I began to think it was 

 all over with him ; but when about half-way 

 down he recovered himself, and by dint of pain- 

 ful flappings succeeded in alighting just out of 

 the reach of the crowd. At once there were 

 loud cries : " Don't kill him ! Don't kill him ! " 

 and while the scamps were debating what to do 

 next, he regained his breath, and flew up into 

 the tree again, as high as before. Then the 

 stoning began anew. For my part I pitied the 

 fellow sincerely, and wished him well out of 

 the hands of his tormentors ; but I found my- 

 self laughing with the rest to see him turn his 

 head and stare, with his big, vacant eyes, after 



