220 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



with occasional bursts of derisive laughter. He 

 knows, this fabulous sparrow, what I have been 

 thinking about and have written. "How would 

 you like it," I hear him saying, "O wise man that 

 knows so much about the ways of birds, if you 

 were shut up in a big cage — in Windsor Castle, 

 let us say — with scores of menials to wait on you 

 and anticipate your every want? That is, I must 

 explain, every want compatible with — ahem! — 

 the captive condition. Would you be happy in 

 your confinement, practising with the dumb-bells, 

 riding up and down the floors on a bicycle and 

 gazing at pictures and filigree caskets and big 

 malachite vases and eating dinners of many, many 

 courses? Or would you begin to wish that you 

 m/ight be allowed to live on sixpence a day — and 

 earn it; and even envy the ragged tramp who 

 dines on a handful of half-rotten apples and sleeps 

 in a hay-stack, but is free to come and go, and 

 range the world at will? You have been playing 

 at nature; but Nature mocks you, for your cap- 

 tives thank you not. They would rather go to 

 her without an intermediary, and take a scantier 

 measure of food from her hand, but flavoured 

 as she only can flavour it. Widen your cage, 



