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necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. It is 

 the satisfaction of doing something which no one else 

 has ever done that spurs one on. It was some such 

 thought as this that led me to send for those Tits. It 

 seemed such a safe way of getting a medal. Here 

 were the birds : I had only to breed them and the 

 medal was mine. I felt almost like Lady Macbeth, as 

 she says of the dagger : " Is this a dagger that I see 

 before me? Come, let me clasp thee!" Somehow, 

 when the Tits arrived the medal did not seem such a 

 dead certainty as I had before pictured it; for the 

 cock bird was suffering — not like myself, with swelled 

 head, but from swelled eye ; he had also apparently 

 been existing on a diet of peameal, and was altogether 

 in a very parlous state. By judicious feeding I 

 managed, as I thought, to pull him quite round, but, 

 alas, after some three weeks of perfect health all the 

 old symptoms returned with tenfold force, and nearly 

 all the feathers came off his head. 



I went away for my holiday on a Monday morning 

 in July with many sad forebodings. On the Wednes- 

 day I received a letter from my youngest boy, direct 

 and pointed in its simplicity. He evidently had no 

 notion of breaking ill tidings gently. Some of us 

 have heard of the old gardener who, when a favourite 

 dog died in his master's absence, wrote somewhat as 

 follows, on three separate post cards, with the evident 

 intention of preparing his master for the blow about 

 to fall : " Dear and Honored Sir,— Belle be very bad 

 — Belle be no better — Belle be dead." My letter ran 

 as follows: "Dear Father,— I don't know how it is 

 with you, but everything here is going wrong. The 

 cock Tit is dead. It is no use to worry, he had plenty 

 of maggots ; the hen is alright." Bang, then, had gone 

 my chance of a medal ! 



Any intelligent man will understand that it was a 

 situation calculated to amuse the ungodly, but with- 

 out any real fun in it. My feelings belonged to that 



