Ah, but here was a taste of freedom--the freedom which his ancestral relatives had enjoyed on the low slopes of Teneriffe before ever a foreign ship had carried them away captive. And Dicky had never read a word about his ancestors and their freedom! Therefore, what did he know about it? Scientists call it "instinct." It is a word too hard for us, and we will say "Jerusalem" and let it pass. Away across the street flew Dicky, the bird of prison birth, the bird of only two comrades of his kind and color, and these but shadows in a mirror. The lizards heard us call, and peeped lazily over the edge of the hammock seed-box, blinking sleepily, and then cuddled down again without sense of their loss. Running after the bird did not bring him back, as everybody knows to his sorrow who has once tried it. A glint of gold in the pine-tree, a radiance as of lemon streamers in and out of the cypress hedge, and we saw Dicky no more. My bird has flown away, Far out of sight has flown, I know not where. Look in your lawn, I pray, Ye maidens kind and fair, And see if my beloved bird be there. Find him, but do not dwell With eyes too fond on the fair form you see, Nor love his song too well; Send him at once to me, Or leave him to the air and liberty. _From the Spanish._ Some day a budding ornithologist, more eager than wise, with note-book and pencil, will possibly record a "new species" among the foothill trees--a species that resembles both yellow warbler and goldfinch. And the young man will look very knowing, all alone out in the woods; and he will send his specimen to the National Museum for identification. And the museum people will shake their wiser heads and inform the "ornithologist" that, in their opinion, there is more of the ordinary tame canary "let loose" in the individual than goldfinch or warbler. Let it pass. A bird for thee in silken bonds I hold, Whose yellow plumage shines like polished gold; From distant isles the lovely stranger came, And bears the far-away Canary's name. Lyttleton. CHAPTER VIII SPARROWS AND SPARROWS What is it, then, to be a queen, if it is not like the silver linden-tree to cast a protecting shadow over the world's sweetest song-birds? Carmen Sylva. Grudge not the wheat Which hunger forces birds to eat; Your blinded eyes, worst foes to you, Can't see the good which sparrows do. Did not poor birds with watching rounds Pick up the insects from your grounds? Did they not tend your rising grain, You then might sow to reap in vain? John Clare. No bird, unless it be the crow, is so nicknamed as the sparrow. None is so evil spoken of, none so loved. Accepted enemy of the farmer, it is the farmer's dearest friend.