22 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



Once more I went to look for him with the cage in 

 my hand, but when I found him he refused to be 

 tempted. I left him for a day to starve, then tried 

 him again ; and then again many and many times 

 on many following days, for he was now much too 

 strong on the wing to be hunted down ; but though 

 he invariably greeted and appeared to welcome me 

 with his loud chirp, he refused to come down, and 

 after excitedly hailing me and flirting his feathers for 

 a few moments he would fly away. 



Gradually I grew reconciled to my loss, for, though 

 no longer my captive my own bird he was near 

 me, living in the plantation and frequently seen. 

 Often and often, at intervals of a few or of many 

 days, when my lost, yet not wholly lost, cardinal 

 was not in my mind, I would come upon him, some- 

 times out on the plain, feeding with a flock of purple 

 cow-birds, or yellow-breasted troupials, or some other 

 species ; and when they would all rise up and fly 

 away at my approach, he alone, after going a little 

 distance with them, would drop out of the crowd and 

 pitch .on a stalk or thistle-bush, just, as it would 

 appear, to look at me and hail me with his loud note 

 to say that he remembered me still ; then off he 

 would fly after the others. 



That little action of his went far to reconcile me 

 to his loss to endear him still more to me, changing 

 my boyish bitterness to a new and strange kind of 

 delight in his happiness. 



But the end of the story is not yet : even at this 



