144 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



Yesterday he lived and moved, responsible to 

 a thousand external influences, reflecting earth and 

 sky in his small brilliant brain as in a looking- 

 glass; also he had a various language, the in- 

 herited knowledge of his race, and the faculty 

 of flight, by means of which he could shoot, 

 meteor-like, across the sky, and pass swiftly from 

 place to place, and with it such perfect control 

 over all his organs, such marvellous certitude in 

 all his motions, as to be able to drop himself 

 plumb down from the tallest tree-top or out of 

 the void air, on to a slender spray, and scarcely 

 cause its leaves to tremble. Now, on this morn- 

 ing, he lies stiff and motionless; if you were to 

 take him up and drop him from your hand, he 

 would fall to the ground like a stone or a lump 

 of clay — so easy and swift is the passage from 

 life to death in wild nature 1 But he was never 

 miserable. 



Those of my readers who have seen much of 

 animals in a state of nature, will agree that death 

 from decay, or old age, is very rare among them. 

 In that state the fullest vigour, with brightness of 

 all the faculties, is so important that probably in 

 ninety-nine cases in a hundred any falling-off in 



