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hearts within it. Low-lying skies above the great refurbished house of Lumby and Lumby in the City. Strike fast, free wings, and bear us on. The British Channel gray and misty; the coast of France with a glint of sunlight on it; the fields of France bright with broad sunshine, and many a cornfield waving in the wind. On southward and westward, till we pass the awful hills, and hover beneath a blazing sun and in the burning summer air of Spain. And southward now to Cadiz, where we drop, swooping downward with sure flight to strike our fancied quarry—Garling!

Garling on the shady side of a narrow street, walking with bent head and hands behind him as of old, looking an incarnate secret here, as in London City half a year ago-Garling selfbanished, with all his wicked schemes foiled and broken, and his heart broken with his schemes -Garling among his ghosts again.

'Do you love me well enough to trust me?' 'I have no words to tell you how I love you.'

Then a chamber with a dying woman in it, and a cheap clock hurrying on the time and stumbling in its haste to get the horror over. Then a dream-journey by cab and rail and sea. Then a real journey by cab renewing the dreamjourney; a railway station filled with hurrying crowds, faces showing here and there in the gaslight, and lost here and there in the gloom; a platform almost deserted; a green light turning a sudden eye upon it; a lamp swinging; a whistle sounding; a hand upon his arm, and a heart which seems for a second as though it ceased to beat. His own. If it would but cease to beat! If it would but cease!

Lost-all lost. The game played quite in vain. Familiar voices in the street laugh at the lost gamester-familiar faces smile derisively. He hears the voices- When did ever villainy thrive? There is a fate in these things.' He reads the meaning of the smile. We were fools enough to believe this shallow fellow a financial genius.' Is it bitter? Is wormwood bitter? He would rather live on wormwood than face that smile. And it mocks him always, awake and in his dreams, and there is no escape from it.

A night at sea, with a moon struggling to pierce a bank of clouds; the sea crying with waste voices. The game played out, and played in vain. A figure on the deck of a ship which floats a black hulk on the waste gray heaving waters a figure with bent head and hands folded behind him, ghost-tormented. Garling, in this lonely narrow Cadiz street, walks with bent head and hands folded behind him, and knows that figure on the ship's deck and knows the ghosts that haunt him. He knows the figure, flying with false passport for the swindler's refuge, Spain. EDWIN MARTIAL, aged 49, height 5 ft. 6 in., complexion sallow;' and so on, and so on. He has that phantom's passport in his pocket. He sees the gray ghost landing at the quay; he sees him taking lodgings, walking the streets of Cadiz day by day, eating his phantom heart out as he goes. Then in fancy the ghost shoulders him, and as it were melts into him, and he and the ghost are one. He and the ghost walk on together to a café in a by-street, and go in together.

Years before, when the cashier first meditated on his crime, he had begun to qualify himself for a residence in Spain. There is but little pleasure to be got in any foreign country if you are a resident there, cut off from communion with your own countrymen, unless you know the language spoken by the people round about you. Garling was not a common villain, and had set to work, having once made up his mind to flee to Spain, to learn Spanish. It is not a difficult language; and though he spoke it like a stranger, he learned to read and write it as glibly and correctly as his mother-tongue. But though he was not a common villain, and though his majestic plot had been wrecked by chance, and not by any fault inherent in it, he had fallen into the one curious blunder of fancying that perpetual leisure would bring with it unrestricted pleasures. Well, he had got perpetual leisure, and it was gall. The bare fact that he was without employment crushed him. He had lived plainly, though to his very heart a gourmet, promising himself the pleasures of the table. He was not so poor even now, with the honest savings of his lifetime, that he could not command those pleasures, and he had no joy in them. He had loved good wine, and though holding himself back from it, had lusted after it. It had lost its flavour and its sparkle. It did but upset his Spartan stomach and make his head ache. He had lived for the World and the Flesh, and he was here surrendered to the Devil; and the world was empty and ashen and gray; the joys of the world were years and years behind him.

And now he began to know how futile his dishonesty would have been even had he succeeded, and he groaned inwardly many a time, and acknowledged the truth of that base but salutary proverb which says that honesty is the best policy. He began to feel the proverb base as well as true, for a plain reason. It is but a poor reason to be honest-that it pays. Honesty has a better plea than that. It is honest, whether it be a good policy or not. so this able scoundrel-this swindler of genius -was crushed before the last blow fell upon him. And here and now the last blow was to fall.

And

Spain is not an advanced country, and has done her best or her worst to sweep the tide of human progress back from her shores. Spain is the staunch old uncompromising Tory among nations. Yet even Spain could not shut out that glorified and beatified Paul Pry we name the press.' She could fetter Paul. But for once in a way he brought the truth home, and struck it deep to the heart of a remorseful, but not yet repentant, villain; for Garling took up from the marble-topped sloppy little table in his café a Spanish journal, and therein read this narrative. Paul had garbled the story a little, as you will see, but he was right in the main.

'A singular romance has just transacted itself in London. The last chapter of this romance reserved itself for Madrid, and is therefore of especial interest for our readers. The great company of Lombaro Brothers, who probably take their name from Lombaro Street, the great

banking quarter of England, was lately compelled to suspend payment. For more than twenty years the affairs of the Company were conducted by One Garling. The name and the persistent character of the criminal alike point to Scandinavia as his birthplace. One Garling was a gentleman of the loftiest repute, and was chancellor of the City Exchequer. He was completely trusted by the Company and was believed to conduct their affairs with unequalled skill and probity; but in reality he was a criminal of daring genius. During the whole of the time for which he was intrusted with the conduct of affairs, he was engaged in the elaboration of a scheme for the ruin of his employers, a plot to which he appears to have been stimulated by a hatred of the City institutions. The result of defalcations spread over a long series of years, amounting to twenty-five millions of reals, was deposited at Madrid, and One Garling himself escaped to this country. It now transpires, however, from the statement of the English journals, that he was detected before his flight and compelled to sign a confession of his misdeeds, by Sir Lombaro, the head of the City Company. Sir Lombaro also succeeded in extorting from One Garling a complete restitution of the stolen moneys. But now begins the romance of the story. Sir Lombaro, who is presumably old and frail, was so affected by the emotion of the time, that he lost his reason, and having mislaid the drafts, he allowed the City Company to become ruined.'

Garling dropped the paper on the little marbletopped table, and stared before him with a ghastly face. He saw already that he had a second time missed his prize. He took up the paper and read

on.

so moulded him that his leisure was an agony, and his heaping up of money the foolishest of all possible blunders. And yet he writhed in spirit at what he read. He was Fate's fool, it seemed, he who had thought himself so cunning. Cunning? The man's belief in himself crumbled. Where were the fertility of resource, the unshaken constancy to self which he had boasted all these years?

Per

He felt a singular curiosity to know how long a time had elapsed between the loss and the recovery of the drafts. He sat for an hour, thrumming on the table, with bent head, seeing nothing that went on about him, and scarcely thinking. Nobody to look at him would have supposed that any very dreadful trouble weighed upon him. Trained so long to impassivity, his face kept a fair copy of its usual expression, and he passed for an idle gentleman whiling away the time in mere reverie. But the curiosity he felt drew him to the Spanish Paul. He paid for his coffee, inquired his way to the office of the journal in which he had read the news, and in due time reached it. Señor Parria, a courteous-mannered gentleman, received him. Garling explained his mission. He was Mr Edwin Martial, an Englishman, having business in Cadiz, and for the present residing there. He had had transactions with the great House, and had known Mr Garling. haps his curiosity as to the authenticity of the story might be pardoned. Assuredly, replied the swarthy Señor. The facts as related had appeared in a journal published in the Spanish capital. Since then, the English mail, by some cause delayed a day, had brought the English journals to Cadiz. The swarthy Señor regretted that he himself did not read English, but—would the inquirer care to search the papers, and if need be, go back on the foreign file and discover any reference to the story? Mr Edwin Martial was obliged. He declined the cigarette proffered by the courteous editor; he sat down with his hat on the floor beside him, and looked through the file of a London daily preserved for the past three months. There he made out the whole of the story. He saw himself denounced in a slashing leader as the Prince of Modern Swindlers. The lash of the virtuous leader-writer's indignation fell harmlessly upon him. The eulogy of his artifice brought him no comfort. He saw of course through all the guesses the virtuous leader-writer made, and passed on calmly to search for the next article. For two or three days he made a figure in the world's news, and then he dropped out of Garling read on steadfastly to the end. With it for five or six weeks. Then he came back again that marvellous fatuity which attends and pro- with a burst, and for another day or two he made duces crime not yet crushed out of him, his spirit the most interesting item in journalistic intelliwrithed in incredible bitterness under this final gence. The leader-writer was at him again, and misfortune. Since his flight, he had never until rejoicingly denounced him as the Prince of Modern now taken up a newspaper. He had supposed Dullards. He brought his leader to its proper that as a matter of course the merchant had com-length by an affecting eulogium upon the virtue municated with the Madrid Bankers long before of honesty, and the paying properties of that he himself had set a foot in Spain, and now he found that the money had been still lying at his call until within a few days ago. He had told himself a thousand times since his exile from England, that money was valueless to him. He had discovered beyond any chance of denial that the time for such enjoyments as he had promised himself had gone by that his appetites were effete, that the life he had led in London had

'The establishment was therefore declared bankrupt, and its properties were seized by the law officers. The books containing the accounts of the association were sold for waste-paper; and in one of them, the confession of One Garling, and the drafts made by him upon the Spanish Bank at Madrid, were miraculously discovered. Application was immediately made to the Madrid authorities, and it was discovered that in spite of all his cunning, Mr One Garling had allowed the money to rest in their hands. It was therefore withdrawn by the authority of the miraculouslyrecovered drafts, and the City Company is thus re-established. It is seldom And the Spanish Paul glided from history to morality, and preached the natural sermon.

attribute; and he pictured with considerable pathos, the restoration of British Mercantile Honour to its old place in the confidence of the trading communities of the world.

Garling read everything he could find, and the courteous editor cast an eye upon him now and again, and never made the remotest guess as to his identity. It was natural enough that any British mercantile person should be interested

in the details of this remarkable business story. The courteous editor himself was interested in it, and questioned his guest as to the result of his readings when he arose to go. With colossal imperturbability the guest replied; with splendid quietude of demeanour, bowed himself out stiffly and like an Englishman, and so went home.

When fiends left the bodies of their human victims at the bidding of exorcists, they tore their habitations. Were the fiends Avarice and Greed preparing to leave Garling that they tore him so? To an old criminal, repentance must needs be an awful thing. Had it begun to come to that with him? The sunlight ruled broad dazzling lines upon the wall, and he sat in shadow and looked at them as they slowly, slowly moved. Gray and stern and cold he sat there, and again his ghosts were with him. What a life! To have these grim and terrible monitors for his sole companions. Well, there was business and its old attractions left him. He had money enough to start the world with, and he would heap a bigger fortune together by honest work than his foolish fraud had cost him. A blunder! a huge blunder! Wipe the record out, and begin again. Start life anew. Why not, with five thousand pounds to begin with? There is a Bourse in Cadiz, and the city is one of the homes of European commerce. So he set his ghosts behind him and beat his remorses down, and rose for the moment a conqueror. No gesture proclaimed his victory; but his cheek flushed a little and his sunken eyes gleamed and his fingers trembled.

He began that very day to prepare for his new enterprise, and as he did so he felt his spirit reviving, and the old resolution filled his heart again. No man shall say the reverses I have suffered broke me down,' he said; 'I will make a new name, which shall outshine the old one.' He began with caution, and thrust his whole soul into the enterprise, so that howsoever the ghosts might batter at the gates and moan outside, they should find no entrance. He had not been at work a week before he found that he was known and recognised in spite of his alias. Not a soul would trust his bond a moment, and his operations were restricted to the limits of his capital. He did not quail at this or at anything, but went on doggedly; and with keen eye and resolute heart pursued his purpose. For a while it prospered, and it became the fashion among speculators to watch him, and where they could discover his financial movements, to follow him. It did not pay him to be followed, and to have the mob with him, and so he worked underground as it were, and grew more secret than ever. But it was impossible even for Garling to work without tools, and he found a tool in a certain Koulo, by descent a Levantine polyglot, with no man knows how many nationalities mingling in his veins. There was some Greek blood in him, as his name seemed to indicate, and some Hebrew strain also, as his nose and lips sufficiently testified. It is not probable that there was in his day a meaner dog in Cadiz. He had been trained for the law, but was universally distrusted, and so had no practice of any sort, and was forced to live by his disreputable wits. Garling worked through this man without seeming to have any association with

him, and thus leaving the mob behind, began to thrive mightily. Garling read character, and trusted Señor Koulo with not one farthing for an instant.

The Señor knew little of his employer's affairs; but he learned enough to know on one occasion that Garling must necessarily have a considerable amount of money by him, waiting for deposit on the morrow. He was a tall broad-shouldered fellow, not unhandsome in his own coarse way, but marred by signs of dissipation. He was a dull dog, and he knew it; but though he was no match for Garling intellectually, he knew himself a match and more than a match for him physically. And so it befell that the fraudulent cashier experienced in turn the miseries he had inflicted upon another. The Señor swaggering in under cover of the darkness on pretence of having some business news to communicate, sat down and began a rambling disconnected tale. He had been drinking to screw his courage to the sticking-point, and had so far overdone it, that his employer discerned the signs of drink upon him, and sternly bade him go. This command, with many c'rambos and c'rajos, the swaggering Señor resented, and Garling renewing his injunction turned his back upon him, and in that moment received a blow which stretched him senseless upon the floor. Then suddenly pallid and shaky, the wicked Polyglot searched his employer's body, found his keys, shakily opened his cash-box, with trembling hands abstracted its contents, opened his safe and renewed the thievish procedure there, and then with trembling legs betook himself down-stairs. disappeared from Cadiz and was believed to have transferred himself to London. He was said to have been seen in gorgeous raiment in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, where of course he was a patriot and a man of family, shamefully exiled on account of the purity of his political principles.

He

numerous and

It took Garling weeks to recover from the physical effects of the wicked Polyglot's violence. Even when he got about again, he felt the old indomitable spirit gone. His nerves never recovered from the shock they had suffered, and at times his mind was clouded. No man pitied his misfortune, and though that seemed to make little difference to him, he felt it. He gradually sank back from the life upon which he had set himself, banked what was left of his money, and lived narrowly upon its interest. Being thus thrown upon himself, he found the ghosts that haunted him more more terrible. The darkness gathered about him, thicker and thicker, and there were awful faces and voices in it. He began to see truly how base his life had been, and spiritual terrors opened on him. Into the gloomy valley in which his days were spent, how shall we dare to follow him? A great man thrown away! The capacities for a great career wasted, and worse than wasted! He used to murmur sometimes a mournful excerpt from what, in his reading days, had been his favourite play: There is no creature loves me; and when I die, no soul will pity me!'

Leave him. Come away from where he sits, with the shadows of a hard and wicked life gathering deeply round him. Leave him—with

pity-if you may.
We shall see him but once
again before the last Shadow which waits for all
shall fold him-

That Shadow, waiting with the keys,
To shroud him from his proper scorn.

JOTTINGS FROM ANIMAL LIFE. FOR Some short time before his death, the late Mr Frank Buckland had been arranging, with a view to publication in a collected form, the most important of his many interesting papers on pisciculture and the habits of animals, which during the last few years of his life he had contributed to the pages of Land and Water. These papers are now offered to the public in a neat octavo volume, published by Messrs Smith, Elder, & Co., and bearing the title, Notes and Jottings from Animal Life.

While a certain melancholy attaches to these papers, as being probably the last that we shall see from Frank Buckland's pen, yet the reader, forgetting this, soon finds himself carried along from page to page, charmed by the ease and kindly good-humour with which the author describes the habits of his many curious pets. The leading chapter on Monkeys is well adapted to bring out the quaint touches of humour which distinguish the author's descriptions of animal life; the subject being graced by many of those picturesque anecdotes which none could relate better than he. As a specimen of the book, the following may be given on the odd subject of Tame Rats:

'I have for the last twenty years never been without a tame rat. The monkey-room" is the general refuge for the sick animals belonging to my friends, and lucky are those animals who come into this hospital. I almost forget where the rat I am writing about came from. I believe he was one I rescued from an untimely end by being swallowed by the ant-eater at the Zoological Gardens. This rat has the bump of curiosity strongly developed, and nothing pleases him so much as to make an inspection of my writingtable. He creeps cautiously about, and examines everything, his object being to steal. What he likes best is lump-sugar. My sugar-basin originally cost a penny; like the Portland Vase, it has been smashed and broken so often that it is impossible to estimate its present value. The cause of these numerous fractures is the rat, who, when he wants a bit of sugar, stands up on his hind-legs, supporting himself with his tail in a tripod-like fashion, and upsets the sugarbasin; then selecting a lump, he bolts with it. It is a remarkable fact that the rat never eats in the open; he takes all he steals back to his house. In order to do this, he has to get on to the mantel-piece, which is about eighteen inches above the writing-table. To enable him to accomplish this, I have put up for him a rat-ladder, built somewhat on the lines of a salmon-ladder. After I had shown him once or twice how to get up this ladder, he very soon learned what he had to do. I have known him scramble up his ladder with objects which for a rat must be of considerable weight. One day I saw him steal a whole red herring. Having tried the best way to carry it, he ultimately picked it up at the right point where it balanced. When he arrived at the round

hole which leads to the sleeping compartment of the squirrels' cage, he was pulled up short by the herring, which was crossways in his mouth. I was curious to see what he would do. He dropped the herring, and seemed to consider. Having quickly made up his mind, he adopted the following plan. Leaving the herring outside, he went into the hole, and turning short round, seized it by the head, and hauled it in with the greatest ease. The muscles about the neck of the rat are very strong, giving him great power to use his wedge-shaped head whether for boring or carrying. He uses his tail to steer himself, and when climbing, works it as a rope-dancer works his balancing-pole.

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The rat is a great stealer of bits of paper, and any loose pieces he can find, he carries away. When the post comes in, in the morning, therefore, the rat has the envelopes as a perquisite. These he tears into little bits, and makes a very comfortable nest with them.'

Mr Buckland devotes a portion of two chapters to an explanation of the process of salmon-spawning and the procuring of eggs for exportation; and in the account of his adventures, while collecting eggs in the North Tyne for transportation to New Zealand, he points out the many difficulties of the task, and the care required in handling the female salmon from which the eggs are about to be ejected. These chapters are interspersed with fishing lore and many capital anecdotes.

In a paper upon Otters, the author relates some of his experiences of these animals, several live specimens of which had from time to time come into his possession. One specimen, which Mr Buckland purchased in 1875, became comparatively tame, and was afterwards sent to the Westminster Aquarium, where naturalists had an opportunity of studying at leisure its interesting habits. After giving an account of the structure of the otter, and the wonderful facility with which he captures his prey under water, the author says: 'I have described, when writing of the anatomy of the guillemot, the wonderful bubbles of air that invariably follow that bird when under water, and I have explained how the air is stored underneath the feathers, and given out when the bird is diving. In the otter, a somewhat similar phenomenon can be observed. As he swims along under water, he is followed by a train of the most lovely air-bubbles, which appear exactly like beads of quicksilver. The origin of this air I cannot quite make out. A large proportion of it comes directly from the lungs. This is important; the otter evidently has some difficulty in sinking in the water-he therefore lets out the air to enable him to go down; but at the same time a good deal of air comes from underneath the fur. When the seal dives, no air appears to come from underneath his coat.

'The otter, it has been remarked, always takes the largest fish in the tank first, leaving the smallest fish till the last. He never attempts to eat them under water, but always comes to the bank-side to have his meal. The otter invariably begins to eat the fish by crunching up the head, never the tail; holding his prey by his forepaws, so that it has not the least chance of escape, and munching it into very small bits. I have prepared the skull, and find that the canine teeth are very trenchant, and almost scissor-like in their action;

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they are conical in shape, much sharper than the canines of a dog or cat. When a fish is caught, the otter immediately transfixes it through the head with his sharp canines, the action of which is such that the fish is held by them as in a rabbit-trap, and cannot escape. The otter holds the fish for some little time between the canines before he begins to eat, waiting till it is quite dead and quiet. In eating, he never uses his canines at all, but bites at the fish with the side of the mouth only. The molars and premolars are also very sharp, but capable of crushing any substance into very small bits.'

While engaged upon the Herring Commission Inquiry, Mr Buckland made a voyage to the north in H.M.S. Jackal, and he gives a graphic description of his experiences while visiting Orkney and Shetland, together with Fair Island. The last-named island seems to be a general rendezvous for many of the seafowl which migrate to and from the far north. 'The common and Black-backed gull and the Kittiwake are here the whole year, but are much more numerous during the breeding season than at any other time. The eider-duck, the guillemot, the puffin, and sheldrake come about the middle of April, and remain till October. The puffin and guillemot seem by general consent to have fixed on the 12th of August as the day of their departure.

but not the dried Australian, and the dealer got quite tired of his bargain. At last he called him an "Abogine," and chopped him to some penny showman for some monkeys. The poor "Abogine" does not get on; showmen can't make money out of him. The "Abogine" of course means "aboriginal native," only the word has been a little twisted.'

In a chapter on the London Birdcatchers, Mr Buckland gives a number of interesting particulars relating to the notes of various songsters Thus, his friend 'Mr Davy's call-bird goldfinch was a very good one, and Mr Davy put his song into words. By listening attentively, I could make out that the goldfinch did really say the following words. There are two songs of the goldfinch; one is

Sippat-sippat-slam-slam-slam-siwiddy.

The other is

Sippat-widdle-widdle-slam-siwiddy-kurr-hurotle-chay. Goldfinches are now becoming very scarce, because the cultivation of land is exterminating the thistles. At the end of the year, the birds lie up in quiet feeding-places, and remain there as long as the food lasts; they will not be seen on flight again until April.

'The song of the wild linnet is thus written by

Mr Davy: Thousands

may be seen a day or two before that date, but only a few solitary birds after it. The black guillemot remains here the whole year. The gannet and fulmar come after the breeding season. The stormy petrels breed here; but though their young are frequently seen, the nests are rarely if ever found. Swans and many different kinds of geese visit the island yearly for a few days in spring and the beginning of winter. Both kinds of cormorants are found here the whole year round; they often drift ashore in considerable numbers, dead or very much weather-beaten, during long-continued

storms.'

Frank Buckland was great at shows, and seldom lost an opportunity of visiting them. Being in Yarmouth on business, of course,' he says, 'I went to the shows, where the best thing by far was the Hairless Horse. Yes, he was perfectly hairless, as bald as a billiard ball. His hair had not been shaved; he had never had any. Some part of the skin was white, the rest black: the white was very white, like the skin of a suckingpig; the black was the black of the edible Chinese dog, also called the "India-rubber dog." There was also on view a "Living Skeleton"-certainly a skeleton something awful to look at. He was said to be thirty-four; he might have been any age. He was awfully thin. His wrist would pass through a gauge of one inch and one-eighth. I asked the skeleton what he lived on. He said: Rump-steaks and porter." Anyhow, he certainly did not grow fat on it. I went also to see a Petrified Mummy," about which the showman of course had a long yarn to tell. This was an old friend that I am continually coming across at penny shows-namely, the "Abogine." The history of the "Abogine" "is as follows: He is a dried Australian native, thrown in as a bargain with some spears, shells, &c., in a lot, and bought by a dealer. The shells, &c., were sold,

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Hepe, hepe, hepe, hepe,

Tollaky, tollaky, quakey, wheet,
Heep, pipe, chow,

Heep, tollaky, quakey, wheet,
Lug, orcher, wheet.

'The toy linnet is a bird that has been taught to sing by the titlark, woodlark, or yellowhammer; they are educated at an immense amount of trouble. The linnet is taught "in-andin," "in-and-in ;" that is, by constant repetition; and only a very few take the perfect song. The song begins thus:

Pu poy, tollick, tollick, eky quak,

E wheet, tollick, cha eyk, quake, wheet.

This is one stave of the song. Then follow in due order the following staves:

Phillip, cha eke, quake, wheet.
Call up, cha eke, quake, wheet.
Tollick, eke, quake, chow.
Eke, eke, eke, quak chow.

Cluck cluck, chay, ter wheet tollick, eke quake,
wheet.

Echup, echup, pipe chow.
Ah, ah, ah! J-o-e.
Eke quake, chow rattle.

Tuck, tuck, wizzy ter wheet;
Tolliky, quake wheet.

When

This is the finish of the toy linnet song. the above song is put together by a properly trained bird, it is just like a flute.

'To get these birds to take the song, they must be taken from the nest very young, before they get the call of the parent-birds.

'Perfect toy linnets are worth almost any sum of money; fifteen to twenty pounds would be given readily for a thoroughly good one. Broken song-birds are only worth thirty to fifty shillings each. A broken song-bird will not make his stops in the song as given above; he will run one stave into the other. Good toy linnets are very scarce, and their trainers are getting old and dying off.'

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