7



future, sneaking back apologetically to their old love. Brevi

spatio interjecto , as Caesar used to say in the middle of a bad

battle. I said to a friend once, after a bad loss, “ Now if you

want some cheap birds, this is your opportunity.” He smiled

derisively.; and, when he came the following week and found me

hard at it, he pretended a genuine surprise, but no doubt formed

an even higher opinion of my folly than he had before, which is

saying a good deal.


And now, as the parsons say, one word in conclusion.

Whatever aviculture may have to say against me—for my con¬

tinual and unalterable desire for something new ; my intolerable

habit of getting into hot water; or of bringing things into the

house which emit unexpectedly and at short notice varied and

awful stenches—she cannot say but that I have been a diligent

pupil, who has honestly tried to learn the lessons she had tried

to teach me ; though some of the lessons have been very costly.


One by one I lost my old ideas derived from books,

weighed them against the real bird life I saw around me, and,

finding them either worthless or wanting, did metaphorically

what the Ephesians did of old with their books, “burnt them

publicly before all men; ” and I can truthfully say to-day

that what little I know about birds, I have learnt from the birds

themselves—they have been my teachers.


Those who have loved birds in life will, I fancy, find the

ruling passion strong in death. Who does not remember the

pathetic tale of the old carter, who lay a-dying. Kindly hands

had smoothed his pillow, tender hands had wiped the death

sweat from his brow; was there anything else that he would like

to have done? There was a wistful pathos in his voice as

he gasped his yearning to “just see t’osses once again.”

Immediately his bed was moved quietly towards the window,

and from stable and pasture all the horses were driven into the

farmyard, until the dying man’s eyes rested on the old mare he

loved the best. Then, with a faint “Tchk, tchk ! Daisy ! ” he

turned away his head and burst into tears. And so he died.

But when the hearse came to bear him away to the little God’s

Acre, the dead man’s mistress had the undertaker’s horse taken

out of the shafts, and Daisy put in to take him to his last resting

place.


Will it not be so with some of us when the end draws

near? We, too, shall want “one last look at the birds,” those

feathered treasures we have loved so well — one last look — until

we wake up in the Better Land.



