The parrot looked up, as if he had awakened from a long, long dream. Something reminded him of the days of his youth, when he was a happy bird flying about over the sunny fields of South America. Then he remembered the language of his youth, which he had not spoken for forty years. Suddenly he flapped his wings in joy, and spoke again. He spoke all the Spanish words he knew, one after another. He spoke to that sailor as to a friend come to him from his own home land. He flapped his wings against the bars, and finally dropped to the floor of the cage, dead. He had died in the thought of his bygone happy days. My dear children, I am closing this book with this story, because I want you to learn a great lesson from it: _be kind to all animals_. I know that you would never willfully hurt any animal. But that is not enough. You may think that you are very kind to some creature, because you feed it and pet it; but all the same you may be very cruel, though you do not mean to be so. You may think it is great fun to have a pretty bird in a cage. But is it any fun _for the bird_? How would _you_ like to be shut up in a cage all your life, instead of playing about in God's free air and living in your own home? The bird wants to fly about and live in his nest in his own home land. Think of that when you wish to put a bird in a cage. Children who are kind to all animals grow up to be men and women who are kind to other people. And it is only by being kind to others that we ourselves _deserve_ to be happy and _are_ happy. Remember all that I have said, till I come back and talk to you again in the next book. Then I shall tell you many more Wonders of the Jungle. Till then, as they say in the Orient, God and His peace be with you! * * * * * End of Project Gutenberg's The Wonders of the Jungle, by Prince Sarath Ghosh