THE THOUGHTLESS CAGER.

Forest and Bird, Issue 33, 1 June 1934, Page 9

THE THOUGHTLESS CAGER.

Should Try the Same Life.

Members of the Scottish Society for the Protection of Wild Birds had a very pleasant field day recently when a hundred wild birds were set free from cages. A report of the incident mentions that the birds “expressed their delight in repeated chirpings and flutterings of wings.” Of course, the majority of cagers do not have a notion that they are deliberately cruel, but they are certainly thoughtless. To an imprisoned bird, pining for liberty, a cage is always a cage, a cramping gaol, whatever may be the owner’s state of mind or heart. Some of the persons, who keep birds in close confinement, try to persuade the public that the captives, relieved from the problem of “cost of living,” rather like being penned up. Such assertions are sheer nonsense. The organism of birds is highly sensitive, and the prisoners usually are grievously conscious of their misfortune. Those individuals might have a different view of this matter if they were shut up for a few weeks or months in a cage which did not give them enough space to exercise their limbs. Even if they were well fed, and greeted with plenty of “baby-talk,” they would not take kindly to the imprisonment. There is something wrong with the make-up of persons who can ignore the feelings of a caged bird.