watercourses made a home in the cage with the bird and the hzards. This 

 snake had an ear for music; at the first notes he emerged from his lair slowly 

 and cautiously, lifted his graceful head toward the singer, and glided in his direc- 

 tion. If the bird were on the perch the snake would crawl up the end posts, 

 taking hold with his scales, which, of course, were his feet, and lie at length on 

 the perch at Dicky's feet, watching out of his beautiful eyes. At other times it 

 would merely glide toward the bird, lift its head erect some five or six inches, 

 and remain motionless until the song was finished. A big, warty hop-toad, also 

 an inmate of his asylum, was a friend of Dicky's, as indeed was every creature, 

 even to the big grasshopper. This toad and the bird were often seen in the 

 bath together, the toad simply squatting, as is the custom of toads, the bird 

 splashing and spattering the water over everything, including, of course, the 

 toad. The toad blinked and squatted flatter to the bottom of the bath, hopping 

 out when the bird was done, and the two sunning themselves after nature's own 

 way of using a bath-towel. 



It would be too long a story were one to tell of the songs Dicky sang to 

 the drone of the drones bumming away against the wire, sorry perhaps that 

 they were to become dinner to lizards before summer was half over. But we 

 must bring the biography to an end, hoping that these few reminiscences will 

 tend to interest people in the "Dickies" that are about them in wire cages, too 

 often neglected and i.cer half comprehended. 



But we should, by all means, give an account of the last we ever saw of this 

 particular Dicky. 



During his stay on the balcony he had become acquainted with the finches 

 and linnets and mocking-birds of the yard, holding quiet talks with them in the 

 twilight, and growing more thoughtful at times, even to the extent of w^atching 

 for opportunities to escape. One evening, just as w^e lifted the door to set 

 in a fresh pan of water, out darted Dicky. Straight to a tree near by he flew, 

 and called himself over and over again. We cried to him, "Dicky, O, Dicky, 

 come back." 



Ah, but here was a taste of freedom — the freedom which his ancestral rela- 

 tives had enjoyed on the low slopes of Teneriffe before ever a foreign ship had 

 carried them away captive. And Dicky had never read a word about his an- 

 cestors and their freedom! Therefore, what did he know about it? Scientists 

 call it "instinct." It is a word too hard for us, and we will say "Jerusalem" and 

 let it pass. Away across the street flew Dicky, the bird of prison birth, the bird 

 of only two comrades of his kind and color, and these but shadows in a mirror. 



The lizards heard us call, and peeped lazily over the edge of the hammock 

 seed-box, bHnking sleepily, and then cuddled down again without sense of their 

 loss. 



Running after the bird did not bring him back, as everybody knows to his 

 sorrow who has once tried it. A glint of gold in the pine-tree a radiance as of 

 lemon streamers in and out of the cypress hedge, and we saw Dicky no more. 



381 



