130 STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 



and I never have kept one. I know there are 

 a great many things to be said in favor of it. 

 It is said that all the lower animals were given 

 to us to make us more happy, and that we are 

 to make such use of them as will add most to 

 our enjoyment. I admit the truth of the first 

 part of this plea, but I do not so readily fall in 

 with the other idea. It does not follow that, 

 because we have liberty to use a thing, we are 

 permitted to abiLse it. Mind, I do not assert, 

 positively, that keeping a bird in a cage, in 

 order to enjoy his music, is abusing him. But 

 it may be so, you see, and I am more than half 

 convinced that it is so. It is said, too, that, in 

 the case of very many of the birds confined 

 in cages — the canary bird, for instance — they 

 don't know any thing about freedom, and 

 moreover, if they were set at liberty, such is 

 their ignorance of all that part of the world 

 which lies outside of their former narrow 

 dwelling, that they would soon die of hunger, 

 or fall into the hands of some enemy or other, 

 who would give himself and family a dinner at 

 their expense. That argument may do pretty 

 well when used in relation to a bird which one 

 has in his possession already; but it is not 

 worth much in settling the question whether, 

 in case he has no bird, he had better buy a 



