FALLACIES AND FACTS. 201 



court of Berkeley Castle, at fifty or sixty yards from 

 its cage, in order that he might see it immediately 

 find its way home. Its home was its cage, and 

 although a full-grown bird when it was taken in a 

 trap, it seemed to have no wish to be away from 

 the confined space in which it ever found food and 

 protection. I had cut the feathers of its wing in 

 the first instance when it was quite wild; then, 

 did an instinctive knowledge of its inability to fly 

 away induce it to be satisfied with kindness and a 

 cage, or why did it resort to its cage when it could 

 have hidden itself in the surrounding bushes, or 

 crept beneath the ground-ivy, or ascended hop by 

 hop into the trees? The motives that governed 

 the little bird I cannot answer for. 



In 1806, then, my first pet of that kind was a 

 greenfinch, and, oddly enough, I never had another 

 greenfinch as a pet until 1869-70. Has the 

 soul of my former little friend come back to me, 

 to live with me, and to see me pass away ; or how 

 has come to pass the unadorned and simple fact 

 which I am about to relate ? 



We, that is, myself and a young lady, were 

 seated, towards the close of the summer of 

 1869, at luncheon, at Alderney Manor, — a repast 



