CAGING BIRDS.

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.