I30 A BOOK OF MORTALS 



Yet the thrush has done its work. By-and-bye a hand 

 will reach out from the window, unhook the cage and 

 take the bird in for the night. It has told its tale to 

 some one. 



How many such caged birds are there in the world .'' 

 Millions, no doubt, all caged for the sake of their song. 



The bird, then, gives us good toll of what it possesses, 

 even when we take from it what it loves most — its 

 liberty. 



And when it is free .'' A moment's consideration will 

 bring us gratitude for the bird and its song. Who has not 

 stolen forth at dusk to listen to the nightingales and felt a 

 thrill as the first jug-jug-ye-ye burst upon the ear so loud, 

 so sweet, so almost recklessly near. In one Italian hotel 

 the rooms which look out into the wood at the back are 

 priced lower during April and May than at other times, 

 because the nightingales make so much noise that sleep is 

 disturbed. 



Then the tameness of birds, the quickness with which 

 they learn to come for scattered food is curiously attractive, 

 their flight is a perpetual problem, their migrations 

 mysterious as the grave. Were the world set free of the 

 dainty, ethereal creatures which hold it in possession using 

 all things in it as their own, at home equally on the 

 outermost sky-scraper of a tree as on the ground, how 

 much the poorer it would be. 



And they are so curiously independent of men and the 

 ways of men. We have all heard of the robins in White's 

 History of Selborne who built their nest in a carrier's cart, 

 and brought up their young ones comfortably as he and 



