Page:Story of the robins.djvu/205



soon as the redbreasts had regaled themselves with the superfluities of the feathered captives, they took their flight to a different part of the garden, in which was a collection of fowls and foreign birds. It consisted of a number of pens built round a grass-plot; in each was a pan of water, a sort of box containing a bed or nest, a trough for food, and a perch. In every pen was confined a pair of birds, and every pair was either of a different species, or distinguished for some beautiful variety either of form or plumage. The wooden bars which were put in the front were painted partly green and partly white, which dazzled the sight at the first glance, and so attracted the eyes that there was no seeing what was behind without going close up to the pens.