Introduction
Harrison Weir was a Victorian artist, engraver and illustrator who specialised in drawing animals, especially songbirds. He was also mad about cats (in 1871 he organised the world’s first cat show) and assumed, naturally enough, that his two passions were incompatible. He discovered, however, that he could not have been more wrong.
When I built a house in the country, fond as I am of cats, I determined not to keep any there, because they would destroy the birds’ nests and drive my feathered friends away, and I liked to watch and feed these from the windows.
Things went pleasantly for a while. The birds were fed, and paid for their keep with many and many a song. There were the old ones and there the young, and oft by the hour I watched them from the window; and they became so tame as scarcely caring to get out of my way when I went outside with more food. But — there is always a but — but one day, or rather evening, as I was ‘looking on,’ a rat came out from the rocks, and then another. Soon they began their repast on the remains of the birds’ food. Then in the twilight came mice, the short-tailed and the long, scampering hither and thither. This, too, was amusing.
Précis
Harrison Weir, the Victorian illustrator, bought a country cottage so he could observe songbirds. The birds soon became quite tame, but in due course the seed he put out for them attracted rats and mice; and as he kept no cat, for fear of what it might do to the birds, he was at a loss. (56 / 60 words)
Harrison Weir, the Victorian illustrator, bought a country cottage so he could observe songbirds. The birds soon became quite tame, but in due course the seed he put out for them attracted rats and mice; and as he kept no cat, for fear of what it might do to the birds, he was at a loss.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, besides, just, must, ought, since, whether, who.
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