BILLY AND HANS 



boys, and the snares which beset a 

 wild life, I would have released him 

 at once. I never so felt the wrong 

 and mutual pain of imprisonment of 

 God's free creatures as then with poor 

 Hans, whose independent spirit had 

 always made him the favourite of the 

 two with my wife ; and now that 

 the little drama of their lives is over, 

 and Nature has taken them both to 

 herself again, I can never think of this 

 pretty little creature, with his eager 

 outlook over the Rhineland, without 

 tears. But in the Rhineland, under 

 the pretext that they eat off the top 

 twigs of the pine-trees, and so spoil 

 their growth, they hunt the poor things 

 with a malignancy that makes it a 

 wonder that there is one left to be 

 captured, and Hans's chance of life 

 in those regions was the very least a 

 creature could have. We have seen 



