  I never liked the idea of rearing birds in cages; of confining those little creatures, that seem to enjoy liberty most of all God's vast family, in the little, stinted prison-house of a cage. Girls seldom incline to keep them caged; I wish, fewer women did; but boys seem almost to possess a different nature. Many really enjoy taking the little helpless fledglings from the nest, hid away so slyly among the thick boughs of the forest-tree; crowding two, three, or even four, into one cage, oftentimes not eighteen inches square. They are even so heartless as to laugh at the fluttering, slapping, and beating of the poor prisoner against the wiry walls of his gloomy, unnatural home. To be sure, I once owned a caged bird. It was a robin. A dear brother had kept him several years, and, on leaving home for a residence in Boston, where he could not take care of the bird, he gave him to me. It was not at a season of the year when we could safely release him from confinement; and, besides that, our oldest brother had taught him to whistle parts of several tunes, and we feared, moreover, that he might suffer even in the best season of the year, from the fact of his having been taken when so young from other robins. Confinement, probably, does not destroy the instinct of birds, so that they would starve if released. After having been an inmate of our family nine years, having suffered countless frights and manglings from the many kittens we had kept in the time, he at last died by the claws of the family cat, when released one fine afternoon for an airing, and to have his cage cleaned. I never since have wished to own a caged bird. The song of a canary bird, born and reared in a cage, never pleases me like the cheerful warbling or merry whistle of the wild, free birds of our woodlands. The one seems but the expression of a cheerful forgiveness of unkind treatment, the bursting forth of a happy nature in spite of man's cruelty; while the other seems a free outpouring of perfect happiness, and the choicest notes of a grateful little being directed to the good GOD of nature. I know we often hear of happy, contented little pet birds; yet I never saw one that did not seem to prefer the freedom of an out-of-door excursion on the strong, free wing, to the hopping, swinging, perching, and fluttering, within a narrow cage. The taming and petting of sparrows, robins, yellow-birds, snow-birds, and swallows, round the doors or windows of one's house, I admire. There is nothing inhuman in this practice. It rather calls forth some of the better feelings of the heart—gives pleasure to us and the birds, yet violates no law of nature. I here give you a little story of a pet swallow that I met with in a little English book, which, perhaps, few of you have read. The children named in the story were certainly kind-hearted towards their little pet, and very indulgent. Mark well their reward! Some of you may be induced to imitate them; at least, I hope you will not again be so selfish as to cage a bird for his song, while, with the exercise of a little patience and kindly attention, you can tame them so easily at your door. THE PET SWALLOW. One day we had been out gathering primroses, and, to put the pretty pale flowers neatly into baskets, we had sat down under one of the windows in the old church tower. Mary was sitting next the wall, when something touched her shoulder, and fell on her knee. It was a young swallow, without any feathers, that had fallen, or perhaps had been thrown, out of the nest, by some quarrelsome brother or sister. The poor primroses were cast away, and every little hand was ready to seize the prize. When we found it was not killed, or even hurt, by its fall, some called for a cage; others said, "Let us put it back in the nest; we do not know what to give it to eat; we may be sure it will die." And this seemed so very true that we were all obliged to agree; but, alas! the poor swallow having built in a false window of the tower, there was no way of getting to the nest, and so the cage was brought, and the little bird did not die, but grew bigger and prettier every day, until at last it could skim through the room on its pretty, soft wings, and would dive down to us, and light upon our shoulders, or let itself fall into our hands. How we did love that little bird! and oh, how sorry we were one day, when it flew out at the window! We all ran down to the lawn; we were quite sure it would never come back to us again, for it seemed so happy to be free; and we watched it flying here and there—now high in the air, now close down to the ground. We had called our pretty bird Fairy, and it really seemed like a fairy now; one moment it was quite out of sight, the next so near it almost touched us. At last, Fred gave a long, loud whistle; when he began, it was up in the air, high, high above our heads, but, before the sound passed away, it was fluttering its pretty dark wings upon his face. From this time Fairy was allowed to go free; and it would skim about before our windows all day long, coming in from time to time to pay us visits, and to sleep at nights in its old post on the top of one of our little beds in the nursery. At last August came, and then our pretty Fairy skimmed through the air, far, far beyond the reach of Fred's whistle, for it had set out, with all the other swallows, on its long voyage across the seas. We had never thought of this,—never thought that our faithful Fairy would so leave us,—and it was many days before the hope of its coming back next year could make us feel at all happy again. But Fairy, our own dear little Fairy, did come back, and it remembered us all, as if it had been away only for a few hours, instead of nearly eight whole months. It was a very happy day, the day that Fairy came back, and it seemed to feel as much joy as we did; first it flew to Mary, and then to Fred, and then to one after the other, twittering its wings, and rubbing its pretty black head on our hands or faces, as we see dogs and cats do when they want to show great kindness. It flew to the top of the little bed at night, pecked at the window when it wished to get out in the morning, and would dart down at Fred's whistle as readily as it had been used to do the year before. In short, notwithstanding the long voyage it had made, Fairy seemed to have forgotten neither its old friends nor its old ways. When it came near the time for the swallows to fly away again, we grew very sad at the idea of losing our pretty Fairy: some thought it would be wise to put it into a cage, and keep it there until all the others were gone; while some, who were wiser, said it was Fairy's nature to go away, and that Fairy must go. But what do you think was our joy to find, that, of its own good will, Fairy stayed with us? All the others went away; and, whether it had grown fonder of us, or that it had not liked the long voyage it had been led into by the example of others, I cannot say; but for four winters it stayed always with us, taking a flight now and then in the open air, but spending the greatest part of the day in the school-room, till summer came, when it would again join its friends, and always build its nest in the very window from which it had fallen into Mary's lap. Six years had passed since then, but what now became of it we could never learn. For a long time we hoped it had gone again over sea and land, to visit far countries with all the others, but whether it had or not we never knew, for we saw our pretty Fairy no more. LAST PAGE. The last bright page before you, |
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