THE GEEAT SHEIKE, OE BTJTCHEE-BIED. 
that the pain and imminent danger of falling combined had 
compelled me to let them go, to save my neck. 
“‘My mocking-birds! catch my mockmg-birds, Mr. B.l 
' Oh ! I wouldn’t lose them for all the world ! Catch them ! 
catch them ! ’ ” 
The kind-hearted Mr. B. exerted himself valiantly, and, 
despite several severe bites administered to his fingers by the 
[ savage mocking-birds, managed to secure two (the third 
i scrambled into a cleft in the rocks), and imprison them under 
his hat. Without exactly knowing what they were, however, 
the old gentleman, grounding his argument firstly on his 
bleeding fingers, and secondly on the fact that the captives 
bore under each eye a black spot, expressed his suspicions that 
I they were not of the sort young Webber imagined. That 
young gentleman’s confidence, however, was not to be shaken, 
and home he carried them, placed them in his sister’s charge, 
and returned to find the one that had slipped into the crevice. 
He was met, on his return to the house, by his sister. 
“ ‘ Brother,’ said she, ‘ you never did see creatures eat like 
our little birds ; they do nothing but eat, eat, eat, all the time. 
I never knew before that mocking-birds were so greedy ; and 
then they bite me so.’ 
“ I smiled benignantly, as became a youthful Cuvier, and, 
holding out to her the new one, said patronizingly, — 
“ ‘ Look here ; he could not escape me, although this new 
variety have the cunning of wizards. Never mind the appetite, 
sis. ; we shall be the more certain to raise them, and their 
magnificent song shall repay us for a little additional trouble.’ 
“ ‘ Well, brother, I hope you will not find any more of your 
j new variety, for I expect to have my fingers eaten off by these 
that you have. They are not content with snatching down 
; everything I can find to give them, but have been trying to 
bite off the fingers that feed them.’ 
“ The reception of my new variety mortified me excessively ; 
but I consoled myself that I was doomed to the common 
martyrdom of discoverers, and nursed my uncouth and 
boisterous pets with even greater assiduity that they were 
| rejected of men. I now let them run about the yard ; for I 
soon found that the raven in their maws constituted a sufficient 
parole of honour to ensure their return to where food was to 
be obtained. But one morning I witnessed a trick of one of 
my vagabonds that completely stunned me. 
“ He had straggled round to the back part of the house, 
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