224 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



colours — olive-green, yellow, chestnut, black and white 

 and grey and many more; doves, too, and finches in 

 great variety. The best of these were the goldfinches, 

 in close little flocks and in families, the young birds 

 clamouring for food and drink with incessant shrill 

 tremulous reedy cries. 



What a contrast between this dainty bright-coloured 

 crowd of feathered drinkers and that of the pushing 

 fighting bellowing beasts ! And what a sight for a boy's 

 eyes! There I would stay in the hot sun to watch 

 them when all the others, the work of watering over, 

 would hurry away to the shade of the house and trees, 

 and my desire to see them more closely, to look at them 

 as one can look at a flower, was so insistent and so 

 intense as to be almost a pain. But I had no binocular 

 and didn't even know that such an instrument existed; 

 and at last to satisfy the craving I took it into my head 

 to catch them — to fill my hands with goldfinches and 

 have them in numbers. It was easily done. I put an 

 old deal box or packing-case over a pool of water, one 

 side propped up with a stick, to which a long string 

 was attached. With the end of the string in my hand 

 I sat and waited, while birds of many kinds came and 

 took their half-dozen sips and flew away, but when a 

 flock of goldfinches appeared and gathered to drink 

 under the box, I pulled the string and made them 

 prisoners. Then I transferred them to a big cage, and, 

 placing it on a stand under the trees, sat down to feast 

 my eyes on the sight — to look at a goldfinch as I would 

 look at a flower. And I had my reward and was 



