28 ON Bos TOW COMM ON. 
the contrary. The former’s awkward attempt 
at alighting on the tip of a fence-picket seemed 
evidence enough that he had not been long at 
large. The paroquet was a splendid creature, 
with a brilliant orange throat darkly spotted. 
He flew from tree to tree, chattering gayly, and © 
had a really pretty song. Evidently he was in 
the best of spirits, notwithstanding the rather 
obtrusive attentions of a crowd of house spar- 
rows, who appeared to look upon such a wearer 
of the green as badly out of place in this new 
England of theirs. But for all his vivacity, I 
feared he would not be long in coming to grief. 
If he escaped other perils, the cold weather 
must soon overtake him, for it was now the 
middle of September, and his last state would 
be worse than his first. He had better have 
kept his cage; unless, indeed, he was one of 
the nobler spirits that prefer death to slavery. 
Of all the birds thus far named, very few 
seemed to attract the attention of anybody 
except myself. But there remains one other, 
whom I have reserved for the last, not because 
he was in himself the noblest or the most in- 
teresting (though he was perhaps the biggest), 
but because, unlike the rest, he did succeed in 
winning the notice of the multitude. In fact, 
my one owl, to speak theatrically, made a de- 
cided hit; for a single afternoon he may be 
