OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS 



follow me from room to room asking to be fed. Yet, in spite 

 of his trustfulness, I could not induce him to feed out of my 

 hand. It was evident that he constantly endeavoured to 

 overcome the remnant of timidity which still survived in him, 

 but he could not yet succeed. Still I strove to attain this end, 

 and the visible progress made permitted the hope that I should 

 shortly succeed, when an unfortunate accident suddenly altered 

 the condition of affairs and put an abrupt end to his confidence. 

 One day a sparrow on a tree in front of my window was 

 piping indefatigably his monotonous shrill chirp, which pierces 

 the ear the more irritatingly the more energetically it is uttered 

 and the greater its well-known deficiency of cadence. As the 

 fellow had repeatedly disturbed me at my work in this way, 

 I resolved on his destruction, and, creeping within range, I 

 fired at him with a small chamber-gun loaded with small 

 shot. At the shot my beloved finch flew suddenly from the 

 tree where he had been perched unnoticed by me. The shot 

 must have passed around him. My sorrow for the accident 

 was deep, for what was to be expected occurred the finch 

 afterwards carefully avoided me, and notwithstanding all 

 enticements, I could only with difficulty induce him again to 

 take from the ground at a great distance from me food which 

 I had scattered. But after a short time he disappeared 

 entirely from my garden with the family which he had 

 established. 



This happened two years ago. At that time, when I sat 

 at a certain table in my garden, a red-tail often came with 

 the finch, and like him picked up, though always with great 

 caution, the meal-worms which I threw to him or laid on the 

 table. After my misfortune over the finch, I took no further 

 notice of the red-tail. A few days ago I sat again at the 

 same table, and when I happened to throw away a match, the 

 red-tail flew down, thinking I had thrown him a meal-worm 

 as I used to do. And even when he found his mistake he 



