222 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



crowd of feathered drinkers and that of the pushing 

 fighting bellowing beasts ! And what a sight for a 

 boy's eyes ! There I would stay in the hot sun to 

 watch them when all the others, the work of watering 

 over, would hurry away to the shade of the house 

 and trees, and my desire to see them more closely, to 

 look at them as one can look at a flower, was so in- 

 sistent and so intense as to be almost a pain. But I 

 had no binocular and didn't even know that such an 

 instrument existed ; and at last to satisfy the craving 

 I took it into my head to catch them — to fill my 

 hands with goldfinches and have them in numbers. It 

 was easily done. I put an old deal box or packing-case 

 over a pool of water, one side propped up with a stick, 

 to which a long string was attached. With the end 

 of the string in my hand I sat and waited, while birds 

 of many kinds came and took their half-dozen sips and 

 flew away, but when a flock of goldfinches appeared 

 and gathered to drink under the box, I pulled the string 

 and made them prisoners. Then I transferred them 

 to a big cage, and, placing it on a stand under the trees, 

 sat down to feast my eyes on the sight — to look at a 

 goldfinch as I would look at a flower. And I had my 

 reward and was supremely happy, but it was a short- 

 lived happiness, for very soon the terror and distress 

 of my little captives, and their senseless frantic efforts 

 to get out of their prison, began to annoy and make 

 me miserable. I say " senseless " because I had no 

 intention of keeping them in captivity, and to my 

 small boy brain it seemed that they might have re- 



