Page:Wild nature won by kindness (IA wildnaturewonbyk00brigiala).pdf/195

 wait till I let him in, and then he would be my happy little companion for the whole morning, fitting all about the room, along the corridor, into the hall-in fact, he was to be found all over the house; but when hungry he returned to me as his best friend, because I was the provider of his delightsome mealworms. It was always amusing to visitors to see me feed my small fowl! He would be on the alert to see where his prey was to be found, and he would hunt for it perseveringly if it happened to fall out of sight. He was often to be seen perched on the Californian mouse's cage, and I wondered what could be the attraction; at last I discovered that he coveted mousie's brown biscuits, and after that he was allowed one for his own use, kept in a special corner, where a cup of water was also provided for his small requirements.

However tame wild birds may seem there will be times when all at once a sort of intense longing to get out seems to possess them. When this was the case Bobbie would fly backwards and forwards uttering his plaintive cry (one of the six kinds of notes by which robins express their feelings),