stle-thrushes with the tempers
of Eblis had to be driven off the berries he would look after in the
ditch.

Also, there was a stoat. That stoat, however, tackled him just once.
In the process it discovered (_a_) that he wore spurs not meant to be
ornaments, and (_b_) that no one could teach him much about using those
same spurs. The stoat, plus a new carmine decoration for gallantry,
remembered an urgent appointment down a rat-hole, and kept it. Perhaps
it was a young stoat, and had not learnt that there are at least four
degrees of cock-pheasant, namely, young and brainless, adult and brave,
old and brave and cunning, and old and decrepit; but the last stage is
a rare bird. There is nothing of any use to the stoat in the second
and third degrees of cock-pheasant--no health to the stoat, you
understand.

The dawning of the morning had passed by now in gold and crimson and
purple splendor; the mist-curtain had been drawn back by the fingers of
the wind, the utter darkness upon everything at ground-level had begun
to give way before the sun, and to leeward of most trees and bushes
there was a balmy luxuriance of golden light that held one lingering.

Gnats were dancing under the low-hung boughs in still corners, as they
will dance on the coldest day; song-thrushes were beginning to take
life for one more day, and tack hither and yon, as if they were busy
pegging the field down with an invisible "cats' cradle"; and the black
rooks, shining like burnished steel shields, flashed and flashed again
as they began to gather beneath the trees, where the ground thawed most
and first. Though they alone seemed to have discovered it, the pigeons
very quickly found that the rooks had hit something good, and you can
bet one jay, at any rate, must be there, to make profit out of somebody.

It was the jester of a jay, whom, in spite of his painted plumage, no
one seemed to have noticed, that first gave the alarm that carried the
cock-pheasant's suspicious temperament a step farther upon the path of
independent action. Up till then you will note that, though he had
left the vicinity of his own people, he had not yet left the realm that
was peculiarly their own--the woods.

"W-a--r-k, w-a-a-r-k!" gasped out the jay suddenly, and fled, a
half-seen vision of pinkish, of black and white, upon uncertain, almost
fluttering, wings.

It was like striking a gong. Instantly all motion was suspended, and
dotted thrushes, clustered rook