BY WAY OF APPENDIX. 
213 
grossly ignorant must he be of its most elemental 
truths, who looks upon it as a chamber of torture, 
a physiological laboratory on a very vast scale, a 
scene of endless strife and trepidation, of hunger 
and cold, and every form of pain and misery — and 
who, holding this doctrine of Nature's cruelty, 
keeps a few captive birds in cages, and is ac- 
customed to say of them, These at any rate are 
safe, rescued from subjection to ruthless conditions, 
sheltered from the inclement weather and from 
enemies, and all their small wants abundantly 
satisfied ; who once or twice every day looks at his 
little captives, presents them with a lump of sugar, 
whistles and chuckles to provoke them to sing, 
then goes about his business, flattering himself 
that he is a lover of birds, a being of a sweet and 
kindly nature. It is all a delusion, a distortion 
and inversion of the truth, so absurd that it would 
be laughable were it not so sad, and the cause of 
so much unconscious cruelty. The truth is that 
if birds be capable of misery, it is only in the 
unnatural conditions of a caged life that they 
experience it; and that if they are capable of 
happiness in a cage, such happiness or contentment 
is but a poor pale emotion compared with the wild 
exuberant gladness they have in freedom, where 
all their instincts have full play, and where the 
perils that surround them do but brighten their 
