218 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



and perches green enamelled, or green variegated 

 with brown and grey, and the roof would be 

 hung with glass lustres, to quiver and sparkle into 

 drops of violet, red, and yellow light, gladdening 

 these little lovers of bright colours; for so we 

 deem them. I should also add gay flowers and 

 berries, crocus and buttercup and dandelion, hips 

 and haws and mountain ash and yellow and scarlet 

 leaves — all seasonable jewellery from woods and 

 hedges and from the orchard and garden. Then 

 would come the heaviest part of my task, which 

 would be to satisfy their continual craving for 

 new tastes in food, their delight in an endless 

 variety. I should go to the great seed-merchants 

 of London and buy samples of all the cultivated 

 seeds of the earth, and not feed them in a trough, 

 or manger, like heavy domestic brutes, but give it 

 to them mixed and scattered in small quantities, 

 to be searched for and gladly found in the sand 

 and gravel and turf on the wide floor of the cage. 

 And, higher up, the wires of their dwelling would 

 be hung with an endless variety of seeded 

 grasses, and sprays of all trees and plants, good, 

 bad, and indifferent. For if the volatile bird 

 dines on no more than twenty dishes every day he 



