52 Blue Thrushes 



out of the basket, when they are transferred to a cage : 

 one of those picturesque cane cages. 



It is a pretty sight to see them a little later on, 

 when their tails are an inch long, long enough to be 

 flirted up and down after the manner of the Chat 

 family, flying on to my shoulders and arms when the 

 cage door is opened, where they take up their position 

 with quivering wings and opened beaks, for am I 

 not their father and mother in one ? So much so, 

 that if I bring a visitor to my balcony to see them, 

 they will start away timidly, for they know not the 

 voice of strangers. " Birds are such stupid things," 

 so people often say who know nothing whatever 

 about them. Let any one keep a tame blue thrush, 

 and they will soon alter their opinion, for they will 

 discover that he knows his master and members of 

 the household just as well as the most intelligent 

 dog, and perhaps be more faithful ; at any rate, my 

 blue thrush will no more think of taking a mealworm 

 (of which he is passionately fond) from a stranger's 

 ringers than he would of barking ; whereas he is 

 ready to snatch one from those with which he is 

 familiar, as soon as he sees the box containing them ; 

 whilst most dogs can be won through their stomachs ! 



Like all members of families as they grow up, 

 my young birds have to separate, one going to one 

 friend, another to another ; and I still possess a kind 

 and grateful letter from the late Lord Lilford, acknow- 

 ledging a hen bird which he had hoped to mate with 

 a male already in his possession, but the latter proved 

 to be too much of a tyrant. There is no greater 



