THE PILEATED PARRA&EET. 191 



ment to the garden-aviary, but appeared to be so 

 supremely miserable there that the sentence of trans- 

 portation had to be speedily revoked, and the bird and 

 cage were reinstated in their former place, the over-mantel 

 being left to take its chance ; and, indeed, for my part 

 I was strongly of opinion that the gradual absorption, 

 or disintegration, rather, of the fantastic adornments (?) 

 that had surmounted it in the earlier stages of its 

 existence, was an advantage to it and not a disfigure- 

 ment: but tastes differ, of course, and in this case it 

 was agreed that they should continue to do so. 



As years passed over his head, Pilate became some- 

 what troubled with what the French term embonpoint, 

 not corpulency exactly, but what may be termed com- 

 fortableness, which stands about half-way between the 

 Gallic term and the Teutonic - wohlbeleibtheit, a com- 

 pound expression that is much too long for general 

 use, seeing that the term of human life is limited. 

 Ay, Pilate grew decidedly "comfortable" as years 

 passed on, and latterly when he was let out for exercise 

 he would "puff and blow like a grampus", as they say 

 at sea, where a little imagination goes a long way, and 

 does duty for a great deal of the same quality of the 

 mind on shore. 



Once I purchased a young companion for Pilate, 

 the best-looking specimen out of a consignment of ten 

 or a dozen head that Jamrach once wrote me word he 

 had just received from Perth, W.A. ; when they reached 



