FEATHERED PHILOSOPHERS 9 1 



if it is killed and eaten continues to 

 sing inside its murderer, revealing the 

 sin of which he has been guilty. 



What is more human in its expres- 

 sion than the despair shown by a caged 

 wild bird? Its first mad impotent 

 struggles, the head turned back as it 

 searches in vain for a loophole of 

 escape, and then the silent drooping 

 attitude of heart-broken anguish. Such 

 things always move me to a pitying 

 vengeance. "I can't get out, no, I 

 can't get out," wailed the starling, 

 when Sterne tore vainly at the wires of 

 its cage, and he wrote : " I never had 

 my affections more tenderly awakened. " 



By accident, I once had two wild 

 birds that showed a human likeness in 

 the different ways with which they 

 bore imprisonment. One bitterly cold 

 Christmas eve, I bought them from a 

 street pedlar, my only wish being to 



