28 ON BOSTON COMMON. 



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 



