220 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



with occasional bursts of derisive laughter. He 

 knows, this fabulous sparrow, what I have been 

 thinking about and have written. "How would 

 you like it," I hear him saying, "O wise man that 

 knows so much about the ways of birds, if you 

 were shut up in a big cage — in Windsor Castle, 

 let us say — with scores of menials to wait on you 

 and anticipate your every want ? That is, I must 

 explain, every want compatible with — ahem! — 

 the captive condition. Would you be happy in 

 your confinement, practising with the dumb-bells, 

 riding up and down the floors on a bicycle and 

 gazing at pictures and filigree caskets and big 

 malachite vases and eating dinners of many, many 

 courses? Or would you begin to wish that you 

 might be allowed to live on sixpence a day — and 

 earn it; and even envy the ragged tramp who 

 dines on a handful of half-rotten apples and sleeps 

 in a hay-stack, but is free to come and go, and 

 range the world at will? You have been playing 

 at nature; but Nature mocks you, for your cap- 

 tives thank you not. They would rather go to 

 her without an intermediary, and take a scantier 

 measure of food from her hand, but flavoured 

 as she only can flavour it. Widen your cage, 



