178 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



satisfy, and which is like an eternal hunger. Chain 

 it by the feet, or place it in a cage fifty feet wide — 

 in either case it is just as miserable. The illimitable 

 fields of thin, cold air, where it outrides the winds and 

 soars exulting beyond the clouds, alone can give 

 free space for the display of its powers and scope 

 to its boundless energies. Nor to the power of flight 

 alone, but also to a vision formed for sweeping wide 

 horizons and perceiving objects at distances which 

 to short-sighted man seem almost miraculous. 

 Doubtless eagles, like men, possess some adaptive- 

 ness, else they would perish in their enforced in- 

 activity, swallowing without hunger and assimilating 

 without pleasure the cold coarse flesh we give them. 

 A human being can exist, and even be tolerably 

 cheerful, with limbs paralyzed and hearing gone ; 

 and that, to my mind, would be a parallel case to 

 that of the eagle deprived of its liberty and of the 

 power to exercise its flight, vision, and predatory 

 instincts. 



As I sit writing these thoughts, with a cage con- 

 taining four canaries on the table before me, I cannot 

 help congratulating these little prisoners on their 

 comparatively happy fate in having been born, or 

 hatched, finches and not eagles. And yet albeit I 

 am not responsible for the restraint which has been 

 put upon them, and am not their owner, being 

 only a visitor in the house, I am troubled with some 



