278 THE NIGHTINGALE. 
One Sunday in summer we paid a visit to this mart, which we 
shall never forget. It was not well stocked, still less harmonious ; 
the season of moulting and of silence had begun. We were not the 
less keenly attracted by and interested in the naive attitude of a few 
individuals. Ordinarily their song and their plumage, the bird’s two 
principal attributes, preoccupy us, and prevent us from observing 
their lively and original pantomime. One bird, the American mock- 
ing-bird, has a comedian’s genius, distinguishing all his songs by a 
mimicry strictly appropriate to their character, and often very ironical. 
Our birds do not possess this singular art; but, without skill and 
unknown to themselves, they express, by significant and frequently 
pathetic movements, the thoughts which traverse their brain. 
On this particular day, the queen of the market was a black- 
capped warbler, an artist-bird of great value, set apart in the display 
from the other birds, like a peerless jewel. She fluttered, svelte 
and charming; all in her was grace. Accustomed to captivity by a 
long training, she seemed to regret nothing, and could only communi- 
cate to the soul happy and gentle impressions. She was plainly a 
being of perfect geniality, and of such harmony of song and move- 
ment, that in seeing her move I thought I heard her sing. 
Lower, very much lower, in a narrow cage, a bird somewhat 
larger in size, very inhumanly confined, gave me a curious and quite 
opposite impression. This was a chaffinch, and the first which I had 
seen blind. No spectacle could be more painful. The man who 
would purchase by such a deed of cruelty this victim’s song, must have a 
nature alien to all harmony, a barbarous soul. His attitude of labour 
and torture rendered his song very painful to me. The worst of it is 
that it was human; it reminded one of the turns of the head and the 
ungracious motions of the shoulders which short-sighted persons, or 
men become blind, indulge in. Such is never the case with those 
born blind. With a violent but continual effort, grown habitual, the 
head inclined to the right, with empty eyes he sought the light. The 
neck was outstretched, to sink again between the shoulders, and 
swelled out to gain new strength—the neck short, the shoulders 
