168 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



10. The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, 

 have succeeded in driving off the blue-jays who used to 

 build in our pines, their gay colors and quaint, noisy ways 

 making them welcome and amusing neighbors. I once had 

 a chance to do a kindness to a household of them, which 

 they received with very friendly condescension. I had had 

 my eye for some time past upon a nest, aud was puzzled by 

 a constant fluttering of what seemed full-grown wings in it 

 whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed the tree, in spite 

 of tine angry protests from the old birds against my intru- 

 sion. The mystery had a very simple solution. In build- 

 ing the nest, a long piece of pack-thread had been some- 

 what loosely woven in, three of the young had contrived to 

 entangle themselves in it, and had become full-grown with- 

 out being able to launch themselves into the air. One was 

 unharmed ; another had so tightly twisted the cord about 

 its shank that one foot was curled up and seemed para- 

 lyzed ; the third, in his struggles to escape, had sawn 

 through the flesh of the thigh and so much harmed itself 

 that I thought it humane to put an end to its misery. 



11. When I took out my knife to cut their hempen 

 bonds, the heads of the family seemed to divine my friend- 

 ly intent. Suddenly ceasing their cries and threats, they 

 perched quietly within reach of my hand, and watched me 

 in my work of manumission. This, owing to the flutter- 

 ing terror of the prisoners, was an affair of some delicacy ; 

 but ere long I was rewarded by seeing one of them fly away 

 to a neighboring tree, while the cripple, making a para- 

 chute of his wings, came lightly to the ground, and hopped 

 off as well as he could with one leg, obsequiously waited 

 upon by his elders. A week later I had the satisfaction 

 of meeting him in the pine walk, in good spirits, and 

 already so far recovered as to be able to balance himself 

 with the lame foot. I have no doubt that in his old age 

 he accounted for his lameness by some handsome story of 



