208 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIKDS. 
impervious to sight, but at last it occurred to me to thrust 
my cane into the difficult bosom of the brake, and turning 
aside the thorns gently, I saw, sure enough, as I had sus- 
pected, four yellow mouths gaping out of shadow, to the stir 
which reached only the darkened sense of their sealed vision. 
Carefully through the environed thorns I lifted the dim fam- 
ily, and bore it to my wife. 
" What can we do with them ?" said she, despondingly. 
" Never mind ; we have the English wood thrush. Brow- 
nie the Second, and rest assured he will take care of these 
callow younglings." 
Well, we got the little things home, and " Brownie the 
Second " behaved very much as Brownie the First had be- 
haved. 
He exhibited the same tender solicitude as Brownie the 
First. After we placed the nest in his cage, he continued 
for an hour or so to jump around, with a wonderful expression 
of wonder and uncertainty, until the little creatures began 
to gap their mouths with hunger, and utter a feeble cry for 
help ; then came our valorous Song Thrush, and with just the 
same movements which I have described in the conduct of 
" Brownie the First " towards the dismal kelpie, he estab- 
lished an immediate sympathy with the forlorn little ones. 
He fed the young mockers at once, and sedulouslj^ culti- 
vated them into respectability, and it was very amusing to 
notice, as the young birds grew up, how insolently they at- 
tempted, (as in the case of the blue birds mentioned in my 
second chapter,) to assert their supremacy. They could 
make nothing out of the " Song Thrush." 
What he did was a seyitiment. Let your insolent autocrat 
of song say what he might, in splendid diction, but he never 
yet dared to emulate my song ! I am the voice of love — his 
of ambition ! so let us stand ; and thus they stood; so far as 
their future relations were concerned. 
When the young mocking birds which he had cultivated, 
became obstreperous, and presumed to peck — with their usual 
