64 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



where he came every day just to have a peep at a 

 linnet's nest with four eggs in it on which the bird 

 was sitting ; that the other boy, concealed among 

 the bushes, had watched him go to the nest and had 

 then rushed up and pulled the nest out of tlie bush. 



" Why didn't you knock him down s"' I asked. 



" That's what I tried to do before he pulled the 

 nest out," he said ; and then he added sorrowfully : 

 " He knocked me down." 



I am reminded here of a tale of ancient Greece 

 about a boy of this description — ^the boy to be found 

 in pretty well every parish in the land. This was a 

 shepherd boy who followed or led his sheep to a 

 distance from the village and amused his idle hours 

 by snaring small birds to put their eyes out with a 

 sharp thorn, then to toss them up just to see how 

 and how far they would fly in the dark. He was seen 

 doing it and the matter reported to the heads or 

 fathers of the village, and he was brought before 

 them and, after due consideration of the case, con- 

 demned to death. Such a decision must seem 

 shocking to us and worthy of a semi-barbarous 

 people. But if cruelty is the worst of all offences — 

 and this was cruelty in its most horrid form — the 

 offence which puts men down on a level with the 

 worst of the mythical demons, it was surely a 

 righteous deed to blot such an existence out lest 

 other young minds should be contaminated, or even 



