As he grew on and wanted to use his limbs, I put him into a large wicker bonnet-basket, having taken out the lining; it made him a large cheerful airy cage. Of course I had a perch put across it, and he had plenty of white sand and a pan of water; sometimes I set his bath on the floor of the room, and he delighted in bathing until he looked half-drowned; then what shaking of his feathers, what preening and arranging there was! And how happy and clean and comfortable he looked when his toilet was completed!
You may be sure that I took him some of the first ripe currants and strawberries, for blackbirds like fruit, and so do boys! When he was fledged I let him out in the room, and so he could exercise his wings. It is a curious fact that if I went up to him with my bonnet on he did not know me at all, but was in a state of great alarm.
Blackbirds are wild birds, and do not bear being kept in a cage, not even so well as some other birds do; and as this bird grew up he was not so tame, and was rather restless. I knew that, though I loved him so much, I ought not to keep him shut up against his will. He was carried down into the garden while the raspberries were ripe, and allowed to fly away; and I have never seen him since. Do you wonder that my eyes filled with tears when he left?
[1] "The Queen of the Air." See page 70.
[2] Cf. contemporary edition.
[3] "Coriolanus", Act iii. scene 2.
[4] "Coriolanus", Act ii. scene 1.
[5] "The Bee and Narcissus."
[6] Miss Amy Yule. See "Præterita", Vol. III., Chap. vii.
[7] The death of Miss Margaret Beever.