CHAPTEE III. 
THE CAGE BIRD AND THE BIRD-FANCIER. 
“ There the treasured singing pet 
In his narrow cage is set, 
Welcoming the beams that come 
Upon his gilded prison-home.” 
Eliza Cook. 
When, for the first time, I visited Ruhla, in Thuringia, 
a locality much frequented and of no small renown, I was 
careful to look at the windows on either side of me in 
search of the pretty girls, and bird-cages with their 
feathered tenants, for which the place is celebrated. I 
saw many of both, though I was assured that in former 
times matters were very different, for in the good old 
days of yore cage birds and pretty maidens were far more 
plentiful. I, however, was very well satisfied with things 
as I found them: my greetings, as well as those of two 
other jovial sons of the learned city of Jena, met with the 
most gracious response from the lasses,—the more plea¬ 
sant, too, because accompanied in every case by the 
buoyant melody of some feathered songster. At the 
same time I found I was perfectly right in having 
always looked upon the Ruhlaer, or “Rtihler,” as a 
peculiar race, for this reason,—the remarkable manner in 
which the spirit of poesy descends from father to son. 
That it is not beneath a poet to keep cage birds, tame 
