FEATHERED PHILOSOPHERS 91 



if it is killed and eaten continues to 

 sing inside its murderer, revealing the 

 sin of which he has been guilty. 



What is more human in its expres- 

 sion than the despair shown by a caged 

 wild bird? Its first mad impotent 

 struggles, the head turned back as it 

 searches in vain for a loophole of 

 escape, and then the silent drooping 

 attitude of heart-broken anguish. Such 

 things always move me to a pitying 

 vengeance. "I can't get out, no, I 

 can't get out," wailed the starling, 

 when Sterne tore vainly at the wires of 

 its cage, and he wrote : " I never had 

 my affections more tenderly awakened. ' ' 



By accident, I once had two wild 

 birds that showed a human likeness in 

 the different ways with which they 

 bore imprisonment. One bitterly cold 

 Christmas eve, I bought them from a 

 street pedlar, my only wish being to 



