GOLDFINCHES AT RYME INTRINSICA 223 



strained themselves a little and allowed me to enjoy 

 seeing them for an hour or two. But as their flutter- 

 ings and strainings and distressing cries continued 

 I opened the cage and allowed them to fly away. 



Looking back on that incident now, it strikes me as 

 rather an inhuman thing to have done ; but to the 

 boy, whose imagination has not yet dawned, who does 

 not know what he is doing, much has to be forgiven. 

 He has a monkey-like, prying curiosity about things, 

 especially about living things, but little love for them. 

 A bird in a cage is more to him as a rule than many 

 birds in a bush, and some grow up without ever getting 

 beyond this lower stage. Love or fondness of or 

 kindness to animals, with other expressions of the kind, 

 are too common in our mouths, especially in the 

 mouths of those who keep larks, linnets, siskins, and 

 goldfinches in cages. But what a strange " love " and 

 "kindness" which deprive its object of liberty and 

 its wonderful faculty of flight ! It is very like that of 

 the London east-end fancier who sears the eye-balls 

 of his chaffinch with a red-hot needle to cherish it 

 ever after and grieve bitterly when its little darkened 

 life is finished. " You'll think me a soft-hearted 

 chap, but 'pon my soul when I got up and went to 

 say good-morning to my bird, and give him a bit of 

 something to peck at, and found poor Chaffie lying 

 there dead and cold at the bottom of his cage, it made 

 the tears come into my eyes." 



It is love of a kind, no doubt. 



The east-ender is " devoted " to his chaffinch, but 



