But how sad it is to
see such a wild, free creature as a lark, or even a thrush or a linnet,
pent up in a narrow cage, where there is no room to stretch those wings
so strong and light, no swinging branch to rest upon; but all the little
prisoner can do is to hop from one perch to another, and beat its wings
against the "wiry grate" which shuts it in so hopelessly. I suppose we
don't think so much of captive birds as of other captives, because a bird
in a cage is such a common sight, and when we hear it sing so sweetly it
seems as if it could not be _un_happy; but when we say "as happy as a
bird," I doubt if it is of birds in cages we are thinking after all.
The cage may be of gilded wires, or of willow twigs; but both are alike
prison bars which keep the birdie back from the liberty to which it was
born. At least this was what an English sailor felt when he met a man
carrying a cage full of birds. He had been a prisoner himself, away
in France, and had many a time longed to be free; and now when he saw
the birds in their gilded prison, he was not happy until he had made a
bargain and got them, cage and all, to do what he liked with. What was
the astonishment of the man from whom he had bought them, when he saw the
sailor open the cage door and let them out, one by one, until all the
little prisoners were free!
As you have watched the birds in their flight, I daresay you have wondered
how they can keep themselves up in the air.
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