120 Birds and Flowers . 
perhaps, seven or eight shillings for one ; in a 
few days, however, the poor bird dies miserably, 
serving its purchaser right ! We should not like 
ourselves to be caught and put in close prisons, 
and carried away from home, and shut up from the 
bright sunshine and from the green pleasant fields, 
and away from the trees and flowers amongst 
which we used to play ; and how should we 
suppose that the poor little birds would like it ? 
It puts one out of all patience to think of people 
acting so cruelly and so thoughtlessly. 
But you will say that I want you to have no 
birds ! Well, that would be hard ; only, if you 
remember, I said that the rearing young nestlings 
would give you a far better and more amusing 
stock. 
My Fidd, who is, for naughtiness, quite a model 
bird, came into my possession as an ugly little 
Grey-pate ; that is, a Goldfinch in its first dingy 
dress. He knows no greater happiness than to 
scold his neighbours and paddle in his water-tub, 
and watch my movements anxiously when he sees 
the hemp-seed box or a tempting biscuit — and, as 
to real home-reared birds, you may do pretty much 
as you like with them. They get so audacious 
that nothing does scare them much ! 
