i82 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



bird can quote with approval. This is decidedly 

 bitter — and yet — ^yes, it does leave a pleasant flavour 

 on the palate. Make room for me there — or I shall 

 make you — and let me taste it again. Yes, I fancy I 

 can remember eating something like this in a former 

 state of existence, ages and ages ago." And so on, 

 and so on, until I began to imagine that the whole 

 thing had been put right, and that the uncomfortable 

 feeling would return to trouble me no more. But 

 at the rate they are devouring their green stuff there 

 will not be a leaf, scarcely a stem, left in another 

 hour ; and then i Why, then they will have the 

 naked wires of their cage all round them to protect 

 them from the cat, and for hunger there will be 

 seed in the box. 



After all, then, what a little I have been able to 

 do ! But I flatter myself that if they were mine I 

 should do more. I never keep captive birds, but if 

 they were given to me, and I could not refuse, I 

 should do a great deal more for them. All my 

 knowledge of their ways and their requirements 

 would teach me how to make their caged existence 

 less unlike the old natural life than it now is. To 

 begin the ameliorating process, I should place them 

 in a large cage, large enough to allow space for 

 flight, so that they might fly to and fro, a few feet 

 each way, and rest their little feet from continual 

 perching. That would enable them to exercise their 



