X 



After my long talk with the bird-catcher on 

 June 24, and two more talks equally long on the 

 two following days, I found that something of 

 the charm the common had had for me was gone. 

 It was not quite the same as formerly; even the 

 sunshine had a something of conscious sadness in 

 it which was like a shadow. Those merry little 

 brown twitterers that frequently shot across the 

 sky, looking small as insects in the wide blue ex- 

 panse, and ever and anon dropped swiftly down 

 like showers of aerolites, to lose themselves in 

 the grass and herbage, or perch singing on the 

 topmost dead twigs of a bush, now existed in con- 

 stant imminent danger — not of that quick merci- 

 ful destruction which Nature has for her weak- 

 lings, and for all that fail to reach her high 

 standard; but of a worse fate, the prison life 

 which is not Nature's ordinance, but one of the 

 cunning larger Ape's abhorred inventions. In- 



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