198 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIEDS. 
bottom of the cage could not reach the food, and to my great 
regret I found them dead on my next visit. Our present ac- 
quaintance stood erect and alert upon his perch, and the 
warm orange tint tinging the white ground of his speckled 
throat and breast, assured me that my conjectures as to its 
sex had been correct. The old birds continued to feed it 
with great industry until it was fall grown in size, and nearly 
so in plumage. The abundant supply of food which had 
fallen to its share, instead of being divided between two other 
throats, had caused it to thrive astonishingly, and it proved 
one of the most thrifty cage birds I have had. This is al- 
ways the best way to raise birds of any kind, but more es- 
pecially, the finer varieties of song-birds, which are usually 
very delicate and difficult to bring up by the hand with good 
constitutions. The young mocking birds of which I have 
told you that I had raised by the blue birds for me, and this 
thrush made the finest and healthiest birds I have ever seen 
in cages. There is another great advantage in pursuing this 
plan, which has been fully illustrated in both these experi- 
ments, besides many similar ones with different birds ; you 
can, by frequently visiting the little prisoners, so gradually 
accustom them to your presence that when the time for sep- 
aration from the mother comes, they are already tamed^ and 
will eat immediately from your hand. There is no danger 
of the faithful parents deserting them on account of your 
visits, for I have known instances of their continuing to min- 
ister with the most unflinching patience, to their young thus 
confined, for a whole season. 
It is cruel thus to impose upon their beautiful loyalty, I 
admit, but then, as men and women will have such pets, it 
is best that they should know how to obtain them with least 
suffering to bird and owner. 
Brownie had now been installed in our room for a week 
or two, and my wife and myself were walking through the 
fields one day, when we came upon a very dingy, bedraggled 
and deplorable looking specimen of the American Eobin, or 
