THE GOLDFINCH 39 



their sharp pointed bills, are sure to be most formidable 

 adversaries, who cruelly and completely avenge the lin- 

 nets. Turbulent and heedless, ilying low and close to 

 the ground, goldfinches are easily inveigled into the 

 snares that men, and cspeciallv children, set for them. 

 Beware ! then comes the cage and the humiliating labour 

 of captivity ! 



The brilliant plumage of the goldfinch makes him a 

 precious prey for bird-catchers. Proud of his fine 

 appearance, and having the tastes of a high liver, he 

 ends his career like those pretty fellows who exchange 

 their beautv and poverty for the servitude of a rich 

 marriage. W^ien it is once shut up in its cage, the gold- 

 finch will always find its table spread with an abundant 

 supply of millet and hempseed, but it has to pay for 

 this delicate fare by servile manoeuvres. It is taught 

 to fire a gun and to feign death ; it is obliged to 

 bear straps and to carry small pails of water for filling- 

 its bath. 



But these are only some of the steps on the road to sla- 

 very, the first, the easiest to climb. Not only is the bril- 

 liant goldfinch obliged to earn his dinner by hard labour, 

 but he is obliged to degrade himself bv making love to 

 a chattering, intemperate canary-hen. He becomes the 

 father of mongrels, called canary-goldfinches , whose 

 hybrid plumage is odious to his sight. Then, as a last 

 mortification, the regimen of the prison tones down the 



