THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY i8i 



our ignorance or want of consideration, inflict on 

 our caged animals — our pets on compulsion. Small, 

 because an almost infinite variety of flavours drawn 

 from the whole vegetable kingdom — a himdred 

 flavours for every one in the dietary which satisfies 

 our heavier mammalian natures — ^is a condition of 

 the little wild bird's existence and essential to its 

 well-being and perfect happiness. And so, to remedy 

 this defect, I went out into the garden, and with 

 seeding grasses and pungent buds, and leaves of a 

 dozen different kinds, I decorated the cage until it 

 looked less like a prison than a bower. And now for 

 an hour the little creatures have been busy with 

 their varied green fare, each one tasting half a do?en 

 different leaves every minute, hopping here and 

 there and changing places with his fellows, glancing 

 their bright little eyes this way and that, and all the 

 time uttering gratulatory notes in the canary's 

 conversational tone. And their language is not 

 altogether untranslatable. I listen to one, a pretty 

 pure yellow bird, but slightly tyrannical in his 

 treatment of the others, and he says, or seems to 

 say : " This is good, I like it, only the old leaf is 

 tough ; the buds would be better. . . . These are cer- 

 tainly not so good. / tasted them out of compliment 

 to nature, though they were scarcely palatable. . . . 

 No, that was not my own expression ; it was 

 said by Thoreau, perhaps the only human a little 



