him in the evening, no Bunny appeared. In vain we took books out of all the shelves, hunted behind the curtains, under the sofas, and in all his usual hiding-places, we were obliged to give it up, and go to bed without finding him.

The next morning, we renewed our search, and seeing no sign of his work in the outer cellar, we determined to have a regular rummage in the inner one. After moving a great many bottles, baskets, boxes, and barrels, we found a great hole. The earth had evidently been just scratched out; for it was quite moist and fresh. The busy little fellow had made a long burrow during the night in the floor of the cellar. When he heard our voices, he came out of his newly-made retreat, and we took him up stairs and gave him some food; for he was quite ravenous after his hard work. Then we consulted with his friend the cook, how to manage about him in future. It would certainly never do to let him go on burrowing under the house; in time we should have all the walls undermined, and the house would come tumbling down upon us, burying us in the ruins. Terrible, indeed, was the catastrophe that we created in our imagination from the small foundation of Bunny's having scratched a hole in the cellar! And now that he had once tried and enjoyed the pleasures of burrowing, we could scarcely expect that he would relinquish it again.

We went to talk about it to Mamma; and we proposed that Bunny should live in the garden.

"But," said Mamma, "I shall have all my nice borders scratched into holes; and the roots of my beautiful rose-trees laid bare; and, in short, the whole flower-garden destroyed, to say nothing of the kitchen-garden, which would, of course, become a mere burrow."

"Well, then, Mamma," we said; "we must make him a much larger house, and keep him in it altogether. We will not let him have his liberty at all; and then it will be impossible for him to do any mischief."

But Mamma said, that although that plan would certainly prevent Bunny from burrowing; she thought that it would not be a very happy life for the poor little animal, who had been accustomed all his life to perfect liberty, and had never been confined to one place.

We could think of no other plan; so begged Mamma to tell us what she thought we had better do.

"Do you remember," said Mamma, "seeing a number of little brown rabbits, running about and darting in and out of their holes, in the wild part of the fir-woods, where we sometimes drive. There is a great deal of fern and grass about there, and nothing at all to prevent the rabbits from burrowing and enjoying their lives without any one to molest them. I advise you to take Bunny there, and to turn him loose in the fir-wood; he will very soon find some companion and make himself a home; and do you not think he will be far happier when leading that life of freedom, than if kept in a wooden house, or even if allowed to burrow in a cellar?"

After some deliberation, we agreed to follow Mamma's advice; and the next day we drove to the fir-wood, taking Bunny with us in a basket.

We drove slowly along the skirts of the wood, looking for a nice place to turn him out. At last, we came to an open space among the fir-trees; the ground was there thickly covered with long grass, ferns, and wild-flowers, and the banks beneath the firs were full of rabbit-holes; we saw many little heads popping in and out.

"This is just the place," we cried. "What a beautiful sweet fresh place to live in; and we got down and went a little way into the grass; then we placed the basket on the ground and opened it. Bunny soon put up his head, snuffed the sunny sweet air, and glanced about him in all directions. No doubt he was filled with wonder at the change from our kitchen or dark cellars, to this lovely wood; with a bright blue sky, instead of a ceiling; waving green trees, instead of white walls; and on the ground, in place of a bare stone floor; inexhaustible delights in the way of food; and soft earth for burrowing. Having admired all this, he jumped out of the basket; first he nibbled a little bit of grass, then ran a little way among the ferns.

"Do let us watch him till he runs into a rabbit hole," we said to Mamma.

And Mamma said she would drive up and down the road that skirted the firs, for about half-an-hour, and we might watch Bunny.

He wandered about for a long time among the grass and plants; and at last we lost sight of him in a thick mass of broom and ferns.

Mamma thought it was useless to search for him; there was no doubt that he would thoroughly appreciate the advantages of the fir-wood. So we gathered a large bunch of wild flowers, jumped into the carriage, and left Bunny in his beautiful new home.

THE JACKDAW.

One morning, my sister was sitting with Mamma at the dining-room window, when they saw me coming down the garden walk, with my head bent down, and something perched on my back.

"Look!" said Mamma, "What has your brother got on his back?"

Up started my sister.

"Oh!" cried she, "It is something alive; it is black: what can it be?"

And she darted out to look at my prize.

It was a fine glossy fully-fledged Jackdaw. The gardener, knowing my love for pets of all kinds, had rescued it from the hands of some boys, who had found a nest of jackdaws, and had presented it to me.

Although it was quite young, it looked like a solemn old man; the crown of its head was becoming very grey; and it put its head on one side, and examined us in such a funny manner, listening with a wise look when we spoke, as if considering what we were saying.

The gardener had cut one of his wings pretty close, and the remaining wing was not very large. We set him down in the garden, and watched him for some time, in order to be certain that he could not fly over the low wall that separated our garden from the road. And we soon saw that he could only flutter a few inches from the ground, and hop in a very awkward sidelong manner; there was no fear of his escaping.

Luckily, there was a large wicker cage, that had once been used for a thrush, in the coach-house. We fetched this out, cleaned it, and placed Jacky in it on the ground near some shady bushes. We left the door open, that he might hop in and out, and always kept a saucer of food for him in the cage.

He soon became very tame; would hop on our wrists and let us carry him about, and liked sitting on our shoulders, as we went about the garden. Near his cage was a large lilac-bush, and he found that he could hop nearly to the top by means of its branches; and he picked out for himself a nice perch there, in a sort of bower of lilac-leaves and flowers.

Finding this much pleasanter than the cage, he soon deserted that entirely; and at night, and whenever he was not hopping about the garden, or playing with us, he was to be found always on the same twig in the lilac bush.

We used to place his saucer of sopped bread, and his saucer of water at the foot of the bush.

When we passed, he used to shout "Jacky!" and soon began to try other words; and tried to imitate all sorts of sounds and noises.

In the heat of summer, when the bed-room windows were all opened at daylight, we used to hear him practising talking in his bush. He barked like the dogs; utterly failed in his attempt to sing like the canaries; mewed like pussy very well, indeed; and then kept up an indescribable kind of chattering, which we called saying his lessons; for we supposed that he intended it to imitate our repeating of lessons, which he heard every morning through the dining-room window.

Sometimes we heard more noise than he could possibly make alone; and we softly got out of our beds, and peeped through the window to discover what it was about. There must have been six or seven other jackdaws, running round and about his bush, hopping up and down into it; apparently trying how they liked his house, and having all sorts of fun and conversation with our Jacky.

Within a few