BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 115 



health, and the agreeable, sensations that accompany 

 health prompt it at intervals to melody; but no 

 person, not even the dullest ruffian among the baser 

 sort of bird-fanciers, would maintain for a moment 

 that the happiness of the little sightless captive, 

 whether vocal or silent, is at all comparable in degree 

 to that of the chaffinch singing in April " on the 

 orchard bough," vividly seeing the wide sunlit 

 world, blue above and green below, possessing the 

 will and the power, when its lyric ends, to transport 

 itself swiftly through the crystal fields of air to 

 other trees and other woods. 



I take it that in the lower animals misery can 

 result from two causes only — ^restraint and disease : 

 consequently, that animals in a state of nature are 

 not missrable. They are not hindered nor held 

 back. Whether the animal is migrating, or burying 

 himself in his hibernating nest or den ; or flying 

 from some rapacious enemy, which he may or may 

 not be able to escape ; or feeding, or sleeping, or 

 fighting, or courting, or incubating, however many 

 days or weeks this process may last — ^in all things 

 he is obeying the impulse that is strongest in him 

 at the time — ^he is doing what he wants to do, the 

 one thing that makes him happy. 



As to disease, it is so rare in wild animals, or in 

 a large majority of cases so quickly proves fatal, 

 that, compared with what we call disease in our 



