290 THE REV. J. G. WOOD. 



a queer bird, which displayed quite an unusual apti- 

 tude for bringing out appropriate remarks, but which 

 had the temper of a demon. But, broadly speaking, my 

 father looked upon the imprisonment of birds in cages 

 as little short of positive cruelty, and often said that 

 they were so changed by prolonged captivity that they 

 quite ceased to be their own natural selves at all. 



Besides all these, my father had quite a number of 

 what I may perhaps describe as outdoor pets. All 

 through the autumn and winter months, for instance, 

 he regularly fed a large number of birds at his study 

 window, mixing a large dishful of oatmeal porridge, 

 bread-crumbs, and scraps of meat, and placing the 

 contents on the window-ledge as soon as he went 

 upstairs after breakfast. Of the presence of meat or 

 fat in the mixture he always made a special point, 

 saying that warm-blooded creatures like birds needed 

 something more stimulating than mere bread-crumbs 

 and oatmeal to keep up the bodily heat, and that the 

 meat took the place of the worms and insects which in 

 weather less inclement they would have captured for 

 themselves. 



The birds soon found out that this food supply was 

 part of the regular daily programme, and half an hour 

 or so before feeding-time they used always to assemble, 

 pushing and jostling one another in order to secure the 

 best places. The same birds came day after day, and 

 were soon well known by sight, thrushes, blackbirds, 

 titmice, finches, robins, and sparrows all contending 

 with one another for their share in the daily distribu- 



