64 
THE BROWN THRUSHES: 
good care to make them continue to think, he 
offered to go to the parents of the intruder, 
and reason with them into taking it back. 
Now, Birds of the Jury, cannot you see the 
gradual elaboration of this plot ? can you not 
begin to see who the real kidnapper was ? does 
it not begin to look as if the young bird had 
been placed in the Thrushes’ nest by Jay, in 
order that he might, in the quarrel that was 
likely to arise, be revenged on the birds that 
had chastised him ? It certainly does. Then, 
when he went to the Robins, and found them 
sorrow-stricken and dismayed, as we learn 
both from his own testimony and theirs, he 
told them their young one was stolen by the 
defendants, and they refused to give it up. — 
After that, when the afflicted parents urged 
him to return to the despoilers and endeavor 
to prevail upon them to return their child, he 
went to them, and, according to their testi- 
mony, which is worthy of some attention, he 
informed them that the old Robins had grown 
tired of their young one and refused to have 
any thing more to do with it ; does not the 
