54 Blue Thrushes 



it is cruel to cage them." Would this still be said 

 if people could see my blue thrush when he is let 

 out of his cage with the window wide open, and he 

 sitting on the sill thereof, only to scuttle back to his 

 cage, as a wild passera would to his cleft in the rocks, 

 when a stranger appears on the scene. I am sure that 

 tame birds like that look upon their cages just as we 

 do our houses, and feel with regard to them that 

 there is no place like home. 



In the entrance hall in summer time he used to 

 fly about, sitting in the open doorway, singing on the 

 steps, but quickly darting indoors again if any one 

 approached either from the house or to it. One day, 

 it is true, he did fly out of one of the windows, but 

 so certain was every one familiar with him that he 

 would come back, that when I asked his friend the 

 butler where he had gone to, I only received a quiet 

 and unalarmed answer, " He is somewhere in the 

 garden." 



On my going out to whistle for him, accompanied 

 by two lady guests, he at once answered me from the 

 top of a garden wall, where he was running up and 

 down, piping all the time with his feathers puffed out, 

 evidently enjoying the escapade. 



Walking towards him, he took flight on to the 

 stone string course of the house, on a level with the 

 bedroom windows ; and seemed decidedly disinclined to 

 come to me, singing in a defiant way at me. Then I 

 suggested to my guests that they were perhaps de 

 trop as far as he was concerned ; impressing on them 

 the fact that of course it did not apply in my own case ! 



