tims repaired
damages, but at length, after counsel taken together, they gave it up.
Perhaps, like other unlettered folk, they came to the conclusion
that the Devil was in it, and yielded to the invisible persecution of
witchcraft.

(1) Shakespeare: _King Henry V.,_ act i, scene 2.

The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, have succeeded
in driving off the blue-jays who used to build in our pines, their gay
colors and quaint, noisy ways making them welcome and amusing neighbors.
I once had the chance of doing a kindness to a household of them, which
they received with very friendly condescension. I had had my eye for
some time upon a nest, and was puzzled by a constant fluttering of what
seemed full-grown wings in it whenever I drew nigh. At last I climbed
the tree, in spite of angry protests from the old birds against my
intrusion. The mystery had a very simple solution. In building the nest,
a long piece of packthread had been somewhat loosely woven in. Three
of the young had contrived to entangle themselves in it, and had become
full-grown without being able to launch themselves upon the air. One was
unharmed; another had so tightly twisted the cord about its shank that
one foot was curled up and seemed paralyzed; the third, in its struggles
to escape, had sawn through the flesh of the thigh and so much harmed
itself that I thought it humane to put an end to its misery. When I took
out my knife to cut their hempen bonds, the heads of the family seemed
to divine my friendly intent. Suddenly ceasing their cries and threats.
they perched quietly within reach of my hand, and watched me in my work
of manumission. This, owing to the fluttering terror of the prisoners,
was an affair of some delicacy; but ere long I was rewarded by seeing
one of them fly away to a neighboring tree, while the cripple, making
a parachute of his wings, came lightly to the ground, and hopped off as
well as he could with one leg, obsequiously waited on by his elders. A
week later I had the satisfaction of meeting him in the pine-walk, in
good spirits, and already so far recovered as to be able to balance
himself with the lame foot. I have no doubt that in his old age he
accounted for his lameness by some handsome story of a wound received at
the famous Battle of the Pines, when our tribe, overcome by numbers,
was driven from its ancient camping-ground. Of late years the jays have
visited us only at intervals; and in winter their bright pl