JIM AND L 



BY ELANORA KINSLEY MARBLE. 



WOULDN'T the little readers of 

 Birds and All Nature enjoy 

 a talk with a mother-bird? 

 The father bird, it seems to 

 me, has done all the talking hitherto. 

 Because he is handsome and can sing 

 is no reason why Jim, my mate, should 

 write up the history of his family. It 

 would have been a sorry attempt had 

 he tried, I promise you, for though he 

 is a Hartz Mountain Canary — pure yel- 

 low and white like the lower bird in 

 the picture — he is not at all clever. 

 My mistress says I have more sense in 

 one of my little toes than Jim has in 

 his whole body. 



"You cute little thing," she ex- 

 claims when I kiss her, or take a hemp 

 seed from off her finger, "you are the 

 dearest and wisest little bird in the 

 world." 



Jim sometimes taunts me because I 

 wear such sober colors— black and 

 brown with green and yellow mixed — 

 like the upper bird in the picture — but 

 I retort that I am a Hartz Mountain 

 bird, also, and have just as good Ger- 

 man blood in my veins as he has. 

 Neither of us ever saw the Hartz 

 Mountains, of course, for we were born 

 in Chicago, but our great grandmothers 

 did, I am sure. 



A good husband? No, I can't say 

 that Jim is. He is too quarrelsome. 

 My mistress says he is a bully, what- 

 ever that may mean. He has a fashion 

 of standing by the seed cup and daring 

 me to come and pick up a seed; the 

 same with the drinking-water and the 

 bathing-dish. Then again he is very 

 gracious, and calls me pet names, and 

 sings at the top of his voice every love 

 song he knows. Sometimes I try to 

 imitate him, when he flies into a rage 

 and sharply bids me "shut up." I am 

 too meek to return the compliment, 

 even when I have grown weary of his 

 music, but my mistress shakes her fin- 

 ger at him and calls him a "naughty, 

 naughty bird." 



She can't tame Jim, all she may do. 



Few canary birds will resist a hemp 

 seed when offered on a finger. My 

 mistress used to crack them between 

 her teeth and coax and coax him to 

 take one, but he never would. That's 

 the reason she calls him stupid, for we 

 love hemp seed just as you little folks 

 love peanuts, you know. That's the 

 way she tamed me, and that's the way 

 you can tame your canary it you have 

 one. 



I have had a rather eventful history 

 for a bird. In the first place — but let 

 me begin at the beginning and tell you 

 the circumstance just as it happened. 



It was about four years ago, so far 

 as I can recollect, that I caught my 

 first glimpse of the world and tasted 

 the sweets of freedom. One balmy 

 morning in June, I escaped from my 

 cage, and the window being open, out 

 I joyously flew into the bright sunshine. 

 I was a little dazzled at first and fright- 

 ened. How immense the world seemed! 

 How far away the tender blue sky over 

 which the fleecy clouds sailed, that sky 

 which I had thought a mere patch 

 when seen from my cage in the window! 

 How many houses there were, and how 

 inviting the green trees and grass- plots! 

 I fairly danced with joy, and chirped, 

 "I'm free, I'm free," as I flew from 

 place to place, my wings, never tiring, 

 bearing me from tree to housetop and 

 from housetop to tree. 



Ah, that was a day never to be for- 

 gotten. How I escaped the dangers 

 which lurk about the steps of the un- 

 wary and innocent has always been a 

 marvel to me. The hostile sparrows, 

 for instance, the green-eyed, sharp- 

 clawed cat, the sling-shot of the cruel 

 boy, the — but why linger over horrors 

 which might, but did not happen? 



In this way the morning passed joy- 

 fully, the pangs of hunger, as noon ap- 

 proached, however, advising mesharply 

 it was near dinner time. From house- 

 top to housetop I flew, from tree to 

 tree, but nowhere could I find a little 

 china cup filled with rape, hemp, and 



