86 Summer 



almost motherly. He thrusts his hand into the dray, 

 and though the young rodents make their sharp teeth 

 meet in his flesh he will bear no malice, but pack 

 them carefully in his pocket, and, dividing the brood 

 among his playmates, rear one for himself so lovingly 

 that the creature plays in freedom in the garden or 

 on the thatch till Spring brings vain and amatorious 

 thoughts, and off he goes to the thronged and secret 

 wood. As for his birds, he takes them callow and 

 unfeathered, when you would think that twelve hours 

 out of their mother's care would certainly mean 

 death by starvation ; yet the way he will bring them 

 up by hand is well-nigh miraculous. He has often 

 watched the process of feeding of the cushat for 

 example, and he imitates it exactly : he fills his 

 mouth with bruised corn or peas, he takes the gob- 

 bet's beak within it, he so transfers the food that his 

 nursling fattens and grows amain and loves him as 

 though he were feathered. For smaller birds as 

 linnets and finches he makes him a little pointed 

 stick, which he dips in a mixture of wild seeds, 

 softened crumbs, or oatmeal and water ; and with 

 the tiniest morsels he sustains and brings to good a 

 gaping and imperious bird-baby that will presently 

 remind you of Lesbia's sparrow ' quern plus ilia oculis 

 suis amabat' 



Thus in the country free birds are very wild, and 

 pets are very tame. The opposite is the case in 

 London. Most of the caged birds are shamefully 



