eat hawk, pitched forward on his perch, with wings wide spread and
fierce eyes glaring downward, in the intense attitude a hawk takes as
he strikes his prey from some lofty watch tree. The golden-wing by
this time was ready to venture in. He had leaned forward with wings
spread, looking down at me to be quite sure I was harmless, when,
turning his head for a final look round, he caught sight of the hawk
just ready to pounce down on him. With a startled _kee-uk_ he fairly
tumbled back off the window sash, and I caught one glimpse of him as
he dashed round the corner in full flight.

What were his impressions, I wonder, as he sat on a limb of the old
apple tree and thought it all over? Do birds have romances? How much
greater wonders had he seen than those of any romance! And do they
have any means of communicating them, as they sing their love songs?
What a wonderful story he could tell, a real story, of a magic palace
full of strange wonders; of a glittering bit of air that made him see
himself; of a giant, all in white, with only his head visible; of an
enchanted beauty, stretching her wings in mute supplication for some
brave knight to touch her and break the spell, while on high a fierce
dragon-hawk kept watch, ready to eat up any one who should dare enter!

And of course none of the birds would believe him. He would have to
spend the rest of his life explaining; and the others would only
whistle, and call him _Iagoo_, the lying woodpecker. On the whole, it
would be better for a bird with such a very unusual experience to keep
still about it.

XII. A TEMPERANCE LESSON FOR THE HORNETS.

[Illustration]

Last spring a hornet, one of those long brown double chaps that boys
call mud-wasps, crept out of his mud shell at the top of my window
casing, and buzzed in the sunshine till I opened the window and let
him go. Perhaps he remembered his warm quarters, or told a companion;
for when the last sunny days of October were come, there was a hornet,
buzzing persistently at the same window till it opened and let him in.

It was a rather rickety old room, though sunny and very pleasant,
which had been used as a study by generations of theological students.
Moreover, it was considered clean all over, like a boy with his face
washed, when the floor was swept; and no storm of general house
cleaning ever disturbed its peace. So overhead, where the ceiling
sagged from the walls, and in dusty chinks about doors and windo