THE LIBELS ON BIRDS.
[To 2-ItE EDITOR OF TITFI "SPECTATOR...J.1 Sin,—The article in the Spectator of February 14th upon "The Sinfulness of Novelty" contained for me one paragraph of special interest, for it was to the effect that "the crow that develops white feathers, and is pecked to death by its fellow-crows, may, for all we know, have excited their jealous anger more than their fear of an unknown monstrosity." Now, I hope it is a fiction that crows peck their fellow-crows to death, from any motive, when they happen to appear in unorthodox colours ; for Jacko,' my tame rook, has lately developed half-a-dozen white feathers, and rooks and crows so evidently belong to the same family, that how could poor Jacko ' be safe with the "rookery rooks," among whom he spends his days, if their envy or fear was excited by his some- what variegated appearance P But they walk and fly about together just as usual, the wild rooks taking not the least notice of Jacko's ' fast-whitening wings. And from that other libel upon my feathered friends, that if a poor tame bird escapes from its cage, the wild birds will quickly kill it, my own experience would seem to clear them ; for between four and five years ago, a beautiful canary suddenly appeared in the garden here—no one ever knew where it came from—and for a whole month it was flying about with the sparrows, who never for a moment seemed to think of harming in any way their yellow-coated little companion. Indeed, if there was any difference, it was Tweet '—so named because of its pleasant little chirp—that had rather the upper hand ; but they were the best possible friends, and were constantly together. Sometimes I should miss him for several hours, and think he was gone altogether ; but later in the day he has come back with quite a little flock of sparrows, having evidently shared their flight about the neighbouring gardens. That it did not go away altogether, was perhaps owing to the fact of the constant and liberal supply of canary-seed it found scattered about the gardens, and at last I thought it might be coaxed into the green- house by the same means—and it was—and venturing in there one morning for its breakfast, it was easily cap- tured and caged ; and though it had been "on the spree" for so long, and such a " spree " for such a little creature, it was just as happy in captivity as when flying about the trees ; and how glad I was to know it safe from all dangers, from neighbours' cats I had more than once caught watching it, and from the coming winter and almost certain starvation. It was late in September when its adventures were finished, and there were a few quite stormy nights, when I wondered where poor, brave little Tweet was roosting.
Now, as this one little tame bird when it flew out into the world found friends instead of enemies, and as Jaeko ' flaunts his white feathers unmolested by his companions, may we not hope that birds are libelled by the general belief that they will "peck to death" a fellow-bird because of anything unusual, either in its "ways" or its appearance P—I am,
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