And on it, radiant from her cheek,
There streamed a sunny glow.
Forth from the tiny, crystal flake,
The pearly petals came;
The stem sprang up—there waved a flower,—
The SNOW-DROP was its name!
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.