nd collect the nestlings
before they can fly away. In the meantime, I will just take one of those
pretty blue eggs, only one, as a trophy. Lest it should be crushed, I
place the fragile thing on a little moss in the scoop of my hand. Let
him cast a stone at me that has not, in his childhood, known the rapture
of finding his first nest.

My delicate burden, which would be ruined by a false step, makes me give
up the remainder of the climb. Some other day I shall see the trees on
the hilltop over which the sun rises. I go down the slope again. At the
bottom, I meet the parish priest's curate reading his breviary as he
takes his walk. He sees me coming solemnly along, like a relic bearer;
he catches sight of my hand hiding something behind my back: 'What have
you there, my boy?' he asks.

All abashed, I open my hand and show my blue egg on its bed of moss.

'Ah!' says his reverence. 'A Saxicola's egg! Where did you get it?'

'Up there, father, under a stone.'

Question follows question; and my peccadillo stands confessed. By chance
I found a nest which I was not looking for. There were six eggs in it. I
took one of them--here it is--and I am waiting for the rest to hatch.
I shall go back for the others when the young birds have their quill
feathers.

'You mustn't do that, my little friend,' replies the priest. 'You
mustn't rob the mother of her brood; you must respect the innocent
little ones; you must let God's birds grow up and fly from the nest.
They are the joy of the fields and they clear the earth of its vermin.
Be a good boy, now, and don't touch the nest.'

I promise and the curate continues his walk. I come home with two good
seeds cast on the fallows of my childish brain. An authoritative word
has taught me that spoiling birds' nests is a bad action. I did not
quite understand how the bird comes to our aid by destroying vermin, the
scourge of the crops; but I felt, at the bottom of my heart, that it is
wrong to afflict the mothers.

'Saxicola,' the priest had said, on seeing my find.

'Hullo!' said I to myself. 'Animals have names, just like ourselves.
Who named them? What are all my different acquaintances in the woods and
meadows called? What does Saxicola mean?'

Years passed and Latin taught me that Saxicola means an inhabitant of
the rocks. My bird, in fact, was flying from one rocky point to the
other while I lay in ecstasy before its eggs; its house, its nest, had
the rim of a large stone for a