How to Attract the Birds 



pigeons cooed their tiresome love stories all the day 

 long, and shrill-voiced canaries tried to drown every 

 other noise, some blackbirds and brown thrushes 

 were seen huddled together, silent and disconsolate, 

 in tiny, dirty cages. From the condition of their 

 plumage it was evident that they had been caged 

 many months. 



On that bright May morning when an American 

 visitor chanced to enter the bird shop, wild thrushes 

 were tripping lightly and swiftly through the grass 

 on every lawn in England with the same freedom of 

 motion, the same alert grace that characterizes their 

 American cousin, the robin. Sweet, bell -like notes 

 were pealing from the throats of happy thrushes 

 throughout merry England at that glad time of the 

 year. In every English hedge blackbirds piped the 

 richest of sweet songs to nesting mates hidden 

 among the blossoming hawthorns. There are no 

 finer songsters living than these two. The contrast 

 afforded by the miserable, dejected thrush and black- 

 bird prisoners in the shop was too appealingly 

 piteous : every one — there were only twelve pairs — 

 was purchased forthwith. 



But the American visitor loved her own land too 

 well not to take those birds home with her. Two 

 days later they had started westward across the 

 Atlantic, comfortably housed in large cages, which 

 were placed in a sunny, sheltered corner of the upper 

 deck. Their spirits quickly revived ; so did their 

 appetites, which were amazing. A sack of sand, an- 

 other of crushed hemp, some patent food for soft- 

 billed birds, garden snails, and fresh fruit from the 

 table, kept them in perfect health. 



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