Others, as I have said, may be taught to draw up their food and water, as from a well, in little buckets. All this is very wonderful, and shows great docility in the bird; but I cannot greatly admire it, from the secret fear that cruelty or harshness may have been used to teach them these arts so contrary to their nature. At all events it proves what teachable and clever little creatures they are, how readily they may be made to understand the will of their master, and how obediently and faithfully they act according to it.
Man, however, should always stand as a human Providence to the animal world. In him the creatures should ever find their friend and protector; and were it so we should then see many an astonishing faculty displayed; and birds would then, instead of being the most timid of animals, gladden and beautify our daily life by their sweet songs, their affectionate regard, and their amusing and imitative little arts.
Introduced into Pictures.
The early Italian and German painters introduce a goldfinch into their beautiful sacred pictures—generally on the ground—hopping at the feet of some martyred saint or love-commissioned angel, perhaps from an old legend of the bird’s sympathy with the suffering Saviour, or from an intuitive sense that the divine spirit of Christianity extends to bird and beast as well as to man.
CHAPTER III.
THE SONG THRUSH.
We have here a charming picture of one of the finest and noblest of our song-birds—the thrush, throstle, or mavis. The trees are yet leafless, but the bird is in the act of building, whilst her mate, on the tree-top, pours forth his exquisite melody. The almost completed nest, like a richly ornamented bowl, is before us.
This bird belongs to a grandly musical family, being own cousin to the missel-thrush and the blackbird, each one having a kindred song, but all, at the same time, distinctly characteristic.
The colouring of the thrush is soft and very pleasing; the upper parts of a yellowish-brown; the chin, white; the under part of the body, grayish white; the throat, breast, and sides of the neck, yellowish, thickly spotted with dark brown.