68                                JACOB'S STORY.

advertise himself as a saleable cockatoo, and that if he died of it, he would do it.

When spoken to, he gravely shut and opened alternately his large, round, black eyes, slightly shook his head, and buried his beak deeper into the soft white feathers of his neck.

I really felt very sorry for him. He had not long come over from cockatoo country, and no doubt the contrast between his old life and his present one was very hard to bear.

But as birds and beasts have a dreamland of their own, in which sorrow and joy come back to them as they do to us, this poor white bird could perhaps go home in his sleep; so let us hope that when he shut up his black eyes, and, shivering and lonely in th^t poor back street, went fast asleep, he forgot the cold grey skies and bleak March wind, and thought he was far away in his forest home. He would be dreaming of the light and the shadow of mighty trees in the tropic sunshine, hear the ceaseless sound of bird and insect, and see the flashing of wings in hues of emerald, topaz, and ruby, and, poor bird, perhaps remember that the happiest of all the happy creatures in that sunny land, were his kinsmen the cockatoos. Did he, I wonder, remember in those dreams above the door, the chattering, screaming, scolding, and laughing of merry troops of birds fluttering from tree to tree, or swooping down in white squadrons upon a field of maize, or sleeping