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too! caged in filth and grimy dirt, with unwashen perches, until

his poor, tender, slender feet were encrusted.


The rememberance of it recalls to me hot evenings after

hotter days in June, when one had to descend from mountain air

into an atmosphere laden with the balmy scent of cheese and oil

and drains! Italian drains ! oh! ! Can’t you see the narrow

streets with the rough pavement and the cobble stones, over

which the carts are rattling and jolting? Can’t you hear the

crack of the whip and the cries of the driver, the chatter-chatter

of the women and the men as they sit by the doorways of their

shops and gesticulate ? Whilst above it all there sounds a bird’s

voice chanting in broken bars of melody. I am just passing

the old fruiterer’s shop, Pietro Paufrauconi, and there under the

green outside shutters on the pink coloured plaster of the wall

hangs the rough wooden cage, in which a Blue Thrush is

imprisoned. I stop to look up at him and give him a friendly

whistle, which greeting is soon interrupted by old Pietro, who,

smelling of garlic, pot-bellied and blear-eyed, with a few old grey

bristles scattered over his bullet head (he is a “very imperfedt

ablutioner ”) immediately puts in his “oar.”


“ Buouo sera, signore!” “Good evening,” I answer, “ is

your Passera for sale ? ” “Si, si, signore,” he says, and proceeds

to tell me that it is the best singer in Italy, truly a beautiful bird,

and yesterday he refused an American gentleman for it. This

is what one might call Pietro’s “ last; ” but never mind ! In the

meanwhile, Francesca, whom I gather to be the daughter of

Pietro, is despatched upstairs to bring the bird down, and

Francesca accordingly appears in the little balcony a moment

afterwards, lifts the cage off the nail in the wall, and re-appears

below stairs. “ Fcco ! ecco ! signore,” says Pietro, “ e proprio

unabella Passera; bella! bella /” Pietro, with all these praises of

the intense beauty of his Blue Thrush, must surely be referring

to the character of the bird, to some hidden charm, for outwardly^,

through no fault of the poor Passera himself, he is anything but

beautiful: his tail is a quarter of an inch long, and more to be

likened to a worn-out scrubbing brush than anything else, the

flight feathers being in much the same condition ; his feet are

heavy with dirt, and most of the feathers round his bill are

rubbed off; add to which, he is generally, like old Pietro, in sore

need of a tub !


After a good deal of bargaining, by the end of which

quite a small crowd has collected round us, I carry off the Blue

Thrush triumphantly, not, however, before Francesca has run



