i84 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



on no more than twenty dishes every day he loves 

 to taste of a hundred and to have at least a thousand 

 on the table to choose from. 



Feeding the birds and keeping the cage always 

 sweet and clean would occupy most, if not the 

 whole, of my time. But would that be too much to 

 give if it made me tranquil in my own mind s" For 

 it must be noted that I have done all this, mentally 

 and on paper, for my own satisfaction rather than 

 that of the canaries. Birds are not worth much — 

 to us. Are not five sparrows sold for three farthings S" 

 I have even shot many birds and have felt no com- 

 punction. True, they perished before their time, but 

 they did not languish, and being dead there was an 

 end of them; but the caged canaries continuing 

 with us cannot be dismissed from the mind with 

 the same convenient ease. After all, I begin to think 

 that my imaginary reforms, if carried out, would 

 not quite content me. The " compunctious visit- 

 ings " would continue still. I look out of the window 

 and see a sparrow on a neighbouring tree, loudly 

 chirruping. And as I listen, trying to find comfort 

 by thinking of the perils which do environ him, his 

 careless unconventional sparrow-music resolves itself 

 into articulate speech, interspersed with occasional 

 bursts of derisive laughter. He knows, this fabulous 

 sparrow, what I have been thinking about and have 

 written. " How would you like it," I hear him saying, 



