18 THE BIRDS OF CALCUTTA. 



sociability is a passion with the species no one who has 

 studied it can doubt ; I have kept several, and have 

 found that they almost invariably exhibited the spirit of 

 the poet's goldfinch, who 



66 A prison with a friend preferred 



To liberty without." 



If one found himself outside the cage which contained 

 the happy family, he "did his possible" to get in again 

 without any thought of escape. It may be ungenerously 

 suggested that such birds are afraid to go about alone, lest 

 their ribald remarks, made in the security of numbers, meet 

 with a just retaliation at the beaks and claws of outraged 

 bird society ; and so it may be, but nevertheless there 

 is a well-spring of sincere sociability under the Babbler's 

 frowsy feathering. On the comparatively rare occasions 

 when my captives were still, they employed themselves in 

 affectionately tickling each other's heads as they cuddled 

 together, and I have even seen one diligently employed in 

 endeavouring to clean the wing of a friend, soiled by the 

 bird lime with which its capture had been effected. At the 

 same time it must be admitted that the addition to their 

 ordinary diet of table scraps of such a delicacy as a cock- 

 roach was apt to produce a sad disruption of fraternal 

 harmony. On such occasions one might see one brother 

 prone in the sand, while another, holding his head " in 

 chancery" with one foot, was punching the same with his 

 beak in a manner calculated to awake grave fears for the 

 integrity of the sufferer's skull when the punishment 

 should be over ; and once I saw two birds adherent with 

 bill and claw to one and the same cockroach, which a 



