“I, with four others, first saw the light in the delightful month of June. We were hatched in an apple-tree, which stood in the midst of a good kitchen-garden. I need not describe to you the affectionate cares of our beloved parents: you have too recently experienced the tender solicitude of yours, to have lost the remembrance of it; and as it is a sentiment which pervades the whole of the feathered race, it is nearly the same in all the species. Let it suffice then, that their cares were more than repaid by our health and safety. We became very fine little birds, and were just fledged: our parents began to talk of teaching us to use our little wings, which as yet we had not so much as expanded, and one evening I heard my mother telling my father that it was high time we should decamp, as she had great reason to suspect that the nest had been closely observed by the gardener. My father, on hearing this suspicion, immediately concluded that it would be expedient to remove on the following day; and we, who were sufficiently awake to hear the conversation, promised ourselves much pleasure from the projected excursion of the morrow. But, alas! how often have I experienced that we deceive ourselves with the hopes of happiness we are destined never to enjoy! These, my first hopes, were the more sanguine, as I had never known disappointment, and, consequently, I suffered more acutely from their not being realized. “We were all asleep, my mother in the nest with us, my father on an adjoining branch, when suddenly we were aroused by a rustling noise immediately over our heads, and I felt myself, with one of my brothers, in the grasp of some unknown being. Our parents fled, they knew not whither, (for it was a dark night,) and we were conveyed by the stranger to a room which overlooked the garden, and placed in a basket, where, after having remained some time very comfortless and chilly, we at length fell asleep. “Our clamours aroused the gardener (for he, it appeared, was the disturber of our peace) by day-break; he arose and endeavoured to feed us, but so awkwardly, that we were more fatigued than refreshed by his kindness, for such I am sure he intended it. Finding, therefore, his efforts were of little use, he put us into a small cage, which he carried into the garden, and hung up in the tree where we were hatched. It was then I saw our once comfortable little nest entirely forsaken. I looked around, in the hope of seeing our parents, but neither of them appeared: however, in a fork of the tree, I discovered my little sister lying very still, as if she had not yet recovered the panic into which we had all been thrown the preceding evening. I pointed her out to my brother, and we both called to her; but she either did not hear, or was afraid to answer us.