I lO 
NATURE NOTES. 
decidedly less commendable— indeed it was suggested that in 
view of their matrimonial difficulties her name should be changed 
to Xantippe. Johnnie was an excellent family man ; his conduct 
as a husband and father was irreproachable ; the one little 
blemish in his other^vise spotless character was a very pro- 
nounced bias in favour of alcoholic refreshment. Sherry on 
sponge cake, he said, was not to be despised, but brandy was a 
drink for the gods. Brandy was a conspicuous feature in his 
diet towards the end of his life, and its effects were amusingly 
apparent in his demeanour, which became very genial under that 
inspiring influence. He lived to extreme old age, grew very 
bald and feeble, but enjoyed life to the last. 
Time would fail me to tell of Greenie, a long-lost wanderer 
who, evidently sick of liberty combined with starvation, hopped 
in at a window one night, installed himself a permanent 
member of the household, and — to quote the admiring verdict 
of the servants — was “ as deep as any Christian ” ; of Angelo 
Jim, of Kralievic Marko, a gallant knight of Malta, who still 
gladdens the earth with his presence and sings the song of his 
far-off island home. But Nemo, the incomparable Nemo — 
the present potentate of my canary-ridden existence — cannot 
be dismissed as a mere name. It was a case of love at first 
sight on Nemo’s side. He had a happy home, plenty of liberty 
and a good mistress. He was an accomplished fellow who 
could whistle a tune, to say nothing of having a pretty and 
not too shrill song of his own. He promptly transferred his 
affections to his present mistress, a frequent visitor of his owner, 
who kindly consented that whither his heart had gone his body 
might follow. He is a bird of immense force of character even 
for a canary, and a valiant man of war. His feelings were out- 
raged by the introduction of a Brazilian paraquet, whose size 
and formidable beak did not overawe him in the least, and it was 
impossible to leave him alone in the room with Rio, as he would 
certainly have fallen a victim to his own thirst for battle. The 
only time when he even failed in sympathy for his mistress was 
in her grief over the sudden death of Rio in the flush of youth 
and beauty. He is on the worst possible terms with Kralievic, 
and few days pass without a pitched battle after a truly Homeric 
exchange of defiances. It is very funny to watch them yelling 
the preliminary war songs dowm each other’s throats, and the 
damage is utterly disproportionate to the rancour of the com- 
batants, being at most a feather plucked out, or a bitten toe. 
A bald heaji is a great source of interest to Nemo ; he delights 
to promenade on it, and with a well applied tweak of his bill 
to curl up the receding hairs on its outskirts, not entirely to the 
comfort of the owner thereof. An alarm clock on the mantel- 
piece of his mistress’s room is, next to Kralievic, the object of 
his fiercest aversion ; he fights his reflection in its metal sides, 
and replies to the alarm with his most ferocious battle song. 
But the whole affection of that little bird heart, as vigorous 
