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Vain hope ! so far as my aviary and birdroom were concerned,

Bob was independent of wings, and without difficulty bounded

np to the highest perches like some spring-heeled Jack ; and as

to driving him into a cage at nightfall, I found that I just

couldn’t do it, and so had to leave him loose all night. At day¬

break on the following morning, I crept down stairs to the bird-

room. Some of the birds were still in bed, some waking up and

stretching themselves, others attending to their morning toilet,

while several little fellows were already on the feed. And Bob ?

Hidden away in a quiet corner, Bob was standing as motionless

as if he had been in a glass case in one of the galleries at the

Museum ; and not a bird seemed to be within his reach. Softly

I closed the door on the peaceful scene, and faced bedwards, but

had not mounted two steps when the Alarm ! was sounded by a

chorus of throats. I rushed back, and found Bob some yards

away from where I had left him but a few seconds previously,

killing and ripping open a bird. “ Killing” is hardly the word,

for death must have been instantaneous. Bob was digging the

claw of the hind toe of the right foot with great power and

determination into the body of the bird. If you watch a man

digging heavy ground, he will force the spade into the ground

with all the strength of the fully extended outstretched right

leg. So was Bob, with his right leg extended, digging his hind

claw, with intense earnestness and decision, into the body of his

hapless victim, and simultaneously was ripping it open from the

vent.


Thus did Bob throw away his last opportunity of leading

a freer and a better life He was immediately netted and shut

up ; and he passed the winter months in a six-foot cage in my

dining-room. There I several times saw him use his right leg in

a way similar to that described, proving to my mind that to do

so is the natural instinct of the bird. When I have placed a

cockroach trap in the cage, I have repeatedly seen him dart at a

cockroach and simultaneously attempt to dig the hind claw of

one foot, I think always the right, into the body of the trap.

Sometimes, too, when fiddling a martial air, he would work

himself up into a state of frenzy, and would dart at some imagi¬

nary bird on a neighbouring perch—never on the ground—which

he would instantaneously and simultaneously kill with his heel

and rip up with his bill : it is part of the ingrained nature of the

bird.


We always, I think, associate a Thrush in our mind with

an innocent songster, and therefore the name of Whistling-

Thrush commonly applied to the genus seems incongruous. In



