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 



