TO TAME HIM 39 



ways must cause the delicately organized 

 bird we forget upon its perch ! The boister- 

 ous play or crying of children, loud talking 

 or laughing, the roar of wagons on the pave- 

 ment, the banging of a piano, or the rattle 

 of a sewing-machine each of these must 

 cause nervous disturbance, if not positive 

 pain, to a being so sensitive to the slightest 

 sound. 



There is a relation, beyond all these, possi- 

 ble to be established between birds and our- 

 selves, which I have called " humanizing." 

 It is similar to that so common between us 

 and our pet dogs, and it changes the habits 

 of the captive from bird ways to human 

 ways. As our house-dogs learn to sleep on 

 a mattress and be covered, to wear a pro- 

 tection from the weather, to wipe their feet, 

 and other things, so the bird may be taught 

 to sleep in a bed with his mistress, to eat 

 from her dish at table, or be fed from a 

 spoon, to consider her shoulder his proper 

 perch, in fact to depend on her as a child 

 would. This does not seem to me a healthy 

 relation for the bird, and, as a matter of fact, 

 it generally ends in unhappiness and death. 



