ame indifference to cats. He is
the most nervous of parents, and spends half his time calling on his
children to be careful. The young thrush hopping about on the lawn
knows nothing of cats and refuses to believe that they are dangerous.
He is not afraid even of human beings. His parent becomes
argumentative to the point of tears, but the young one stays where he
is and looks at you with a sideways jerk of his head as much as to
say: "Listen to the old 'un." You, too, begin to be alarmed at such
boldness. You know, like the pitiful parent, that the world is a very
dangerous place, and that your neighbour's cat goes about like a
roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. It has been contended by some
men of science that all birds are born fearless after the manner of
the young thrush, and that fear is a lesson that has to be taught to
each new generation by the more experienced parents. Fear, they say,
is not an inherited instinct, but a racial tradition that has to be
communicated like the morality of civilised people. The young thrush
on the lawn is certainly a witness on behalf of this theory. He hops
towards you instead of away from you. He moves his gaping beak as
though he were trying to say something. If there were no cats in the
world, you would encourage his confidences, but you feel that, much as
you would like to make friends with him, you must, for his own sake,
give him his first lesson in fear. You try to give yourself the
appearance of a grim giant: it has no effect on him. You make a quick
movement to chase him away: he runs a few yards and then stops and
looks round at you as though you were playing a game. It is too much
to expect of you that you will actually throw stones at a bird for its
good, and so you give up his education as a bad job. Alas, in two
days, your worst fears are justified. His dead body is found, torn and
ruffled, among the bushes. Some cat has murdered him--murdered him,
evidently, not in hunger, but just for fun. Two indignant children,
one gold, one brown, discover the dead body and bring in the tale.
They prepare the funeral rites of one whose only sin was his
innocence. This is not the first burial in the garden. There is
already a cemetery marked with half-a-dozen crosses and heaped with
flowers under the pear-tree on the south wall. Here is where the mouse
was buried; here where the starling; and here the rabbit's skull. They
all lie there under the earth in boxes, as you and I w