96 Birds I Have Kept. 



down tlie chimney, and fluttered through the register of the 

 grate into the room where it was found. It was so wild 

 and restless that I could not find it in my heart to keep the 

 poor thing a captive, so after trying for a short time what 

 could be done in the way of taming it, and not succeeding 

 to my satisfaction, I opened the window and let it fly away; 

 which it did right joyfully I have no doubt, for settling on 

 a garden wall a few doors off, it commenced to preen its 

 plumage, which had not only been dirtied by the soot that 

 accompanied it in its fall down the chimney, but deranged 

 and broken by its frantic endeavours to escape. As soon as 

 it had finished its toilette, it uttered a loud note of triumph, 

 and flew off to rejoin its companions in the adjoining trees. 

 Everybody remembers Sterne's Starling, I have no doubt, 

 and its plaintive cry of ''I can't get out! I can't get out!" 

 How could I keep such a bird in a cage? its continual efforts 

 to escape would have been a standing reproach to my hu- 

 manity. 



I was rather sorry, too, for when tame the Starling is a 

 very nice bird, learning to whistle, speak, and imitate all 

 kinds of domestic sounds. I remember once paying a visit 

 to a friend, and wondering at the alternate, but sometimes 

 confused, sounds of whistling, laughing, and sawing (as of a 

 carpenter sawing a piece of wood) that proceeded from an 

 adjoining room, and after a while could not help asking what 

 it meant. ''That's the bird", replied my friend. "What 

 bird?" I asked. ''My Starling." What a beauty he was! 

 and clever as handsome: but he, too, looked as if he wanted 

 sadly to "get out." 



These birds make their nests of grass and leaves under 

 the eaves of houses, in pigeon-cotes, holes of trees, and any 

 convenient nook or crevice they can find, including the de- 

 serted nests of Eooks and Magpies, sharing the church towers 

 and steeples with the Daws, and the groups of statuary on 

 the fronts of public buildings with the Sparrows and Pigeons. 



