I20 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



took it up in my hand, and found that it was already 

 quite dead. It was a large example of its species, 

 and its size, together with a something of dimness 

 in the glossy purple colour of the upper plumage, 

 seemed to show that it was an old bird. But it was 

 uninjured, and when I dissected it no trace of 

 disease was discernible. I concluded that it was an 

 old bird that had died solely from natural failure 

 of the life-energy. 



But how wonderful, how almost incredible, that 

 the healthy vigour and joy of life should have con- 

 tinued in this individual bird down to within so 

 short a period of the end ; that it should have been 

 not only strong enough to find its food, but to rush 

 and wheel about for long intervals in purely sportive 

 exercises, when the brief twilight of decline and 

 final extinction were so near I It becomes credible 

 — ^we can even believe that most of the individuals 

 that cease to exist only when the vital fire has burnt 

 itself out, fall on death in this swift, easy manner — 

 when we recall the fact that even in the life-history 

 of men such a thing is not unknown. Probably there 

 is not one among my readers who will not be able 

 to recall some such incident in his own circle — ^the 

 case of some one who lived, perhaps, long past the 

 term usually allotted to man, and who finally passed 

 away without a struggle, without a pang, so that 

 those who were with him found it hard to believe 



