CHAPTER XXXIV 



THE DRAW-WATER 



The goldfinch or " draw-water " is not a bird of graceful 

 build nor sweet song, yet is he dear to the Philistine who 

 loves variegated colours, because he satisfies a rude barbaric 

 taste for colour; for he is a "gay bird," and he is great at 

 parlour tricks, like his lover ; for cannot he draw his water 

 and seed to his cage by a simple mechanical contrivance ? 

 And so he delights the populace, as do the performing 

 elephant and the contortionist. 



And of our cage-birds he seems most ill at ease, and is 

 perpetually rushing from one side of the cage to the other, 

 and if he be given half a chance he will escape, for he is 

 quick and a swift flyer, and returns to the marsh, where in 

 sooth he is seen at his best ; for at a distance, flitting rest- 

 lessly with quick jumps from thistle to gorse-bush in the 

 bright sunshine, he delights the eye, for 'tis an ever-shifting 

 ball of colour flitting over the sere marsh-crops ; but when 

 you come to regard him in a cage, you find him ill-shapen, 

 restless, bad-tempered, an indifferent musician, a mounte- 

 bank and imitator, and a lover of rude noises, for he sings 

 never so sweetly as when a millman's engine is rattling, 

 pumping forth the marsh water into the rivers. 



However, he has taste when building his nursery, for he 

 generally chooses a fruit-tree, preferably an apple, covered 

 with madder-tinged blossom ; for though he pairs very early 

 in spring, he does not begin to build till the middle of May. 

 In some mossy crook he builds his neat small cradle of 

 moss, and he is a good husband, taking his turn at sitting 

 and feeding the young with flies and maggots. 



