THE GREENFINCH. 
boy and the cnr slinking off, leaving me master of the field, 
and at liberty to do as I pleased with the lame greenfinch (for 
such I discovered it to be), who, during the fray, had huddled 
against the wall, trembling with fright. I took it up, wrapped 
it in my ensanguined pinafore, and hurried home to my parents, 
who were not a little alarmed at sight of my disfigured coun- 
tenance. As for the sick bird whose cause I had championed, 
there was no such thing as a cage to put him in, so I installed 
him in a great, dreary, unused meat-safe, that stood in the 
kitchen, and there he resided till his injured wing was com- 
pletely healed. 
He got quite well in a very short time, and we got to be 
capital friends. After a while I persuaded my father to have 
the old meat-safe wired at the sides and converted into a breed- 
ing-cage, and then, having obtained a couple of hen canaries I 
soon had quite an aviary. 
The green bird is a robust and handsome fellow, the prevail- 
ing colour of his plumage is olive-green, which (in the cock- 
bird) is brighter on the breast than elsewhere. Indeed, in the 
fall of the year, when the foliage of the trees and hedges is 
fading from green to yellow, it is anything but an easy matter 
to distinguish the greenfinch from the bough on which he may 
be sitting. This peculiarity is thus prettily remarked by the 
poet Wordsworth : — 
“ One have I mark’d, the happiest guest 
In all this covert of the bless’ d, 
Hail to thee, far above the rest, 
In joy of voice and pinion. 
Thou linnet, in thy green array, 
Presiding spirit, here to-day, 
Host lead the revels of the May, 
And this is thy dominion. 
t( Upon yon tuft of hazel trees. 
That twinkle in the gusty breeze. 
Behold him, perch’d in ecstacies. 
Yet seeming still to hover. 
There, where the flutter of his wings 
Upon his back and body flings 
Shadows and sunny glimmerings 
That cover him all over. 
“ My sight he dazzles, half deceives, 
A bird so like the dancing leaves, 
Then flits, and from the cottage eaves 
Pours forth his song in gushes ; 
As if, by that exulting strain, 
He mock’d, and treated with disdain. 
The voiceless form he chose to feign. 
While fluttering in the bushes.” 
