Birds and Beasts _Translated by_ A. R. Allinson _from the French of_ Camille Lemonnier _Illustrated by_ E. J. Detmold London: George Allen & Company, Ltd. _Ruskin House_, Rathbone Place. Mcmxi [All rights reserved] Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh Contents and Illustrations PAGE Jack and Murph 1 The Captive Goldfinch 53 Strange Adventures of a Little White Rabbit 91 “Monsieur Friquet” 106 A Lost Dog 133 Misadventures of an Owl 156 Birds and Beasts [Illustration: JACK AND MURPH] Jack and Murph I Jack and Murph were friends, old friends, trusty and tried. It was now nearly six years since the day chance had brought them together as members of the same company. Jack had come straight from the African forests; he had crossed the seas, and set foot on the continent of Europe for the first time; his amazement knew no bounds. It is not for nothing a little fellow of his sort is torn from the freedom of his vagabond life in the woods and surrendered to the tender mercies of a showman of performing animals. He learned to know the cruel tedium of captivity; shut up in a cage, he thought sadly of his merry gambols in the tree-tops; his little face grew wan and withered, and he came near pining to death. But time damped the keenness of his grief; by dint of seeing around him other little creatures that, like himself, had wearied for their native wilds, then little by little had grown reconciled to their fate, and now seemed to get a prodigious amount of fun out of their new life, he made the best of the bars, the tainted air of the booth, and the clown’s grimaces, rehearsing his drolleries before the animals’ cages. At the same time he could never quite share the gaiety of his companions in misfortune. While they were enjoying everlasting games of hide-and-seek, scuffling, squabbling, pelting each other with nuts, he would cower timidly in a corner, too sad at heart to join in their noisy merriment. Sometimes, when his feelings grew too much for him, he would break out in a series of sharp, shrill outcries, or wail like a new-born babe in his doleful despair.