eover with their young ones; they were
not amiable and dutiful children, but spent all their time in grumbling
and shouting for more food, till they nearly drove the old folks mad,
and Mrs Spottleover said she would never have been married if she had
known; "no; that she wouldn't." Tiresome children hers were, for they
were no sooner hatched, and lay at the bottom of the nest all eyes and
mouth, with just a patch of grey woolly fluff stuck on their backs, than
they began to open their great beaks, and gorge everything the old ones
brought; till you would almost have thought they must have killed
themselves; but they did not; they only grew; and that, too, at such a
rate, that before they were fledged they used to push, crowd, and fight
because, they said, the nest was too tight; and it was almost a wonder
nobody fell overboard. Beautiful beaks they had, too, as they grew
older, and sweet voices, that subsided into a querulous grumbling when
the old birds had gone; but directly father or mother returned, tired
and panting, to settle on the bush, up popped every bird, and strained
every neck, and wide open sprang every beak, ready for the coming "slug,
grub, or wire-worm."

"My turn--my turn--my turn--my turn," chorused the voices; ready to snap
up the coming morsel like insatiable young monsters as they were; and
this time it was a fine fat worm that Mrs Spottleover found on the
grass plot far away from his hole, and had killed and then brought him
in triumph to her little ones for breakfast.

"Now, one at a time, children; one at a time; don't be greedy," said
dame Spottleover; and then she popped the beautiful, juicy,
macaroni-like morsel into the beak of number one, who began to gobble it
down for fear anyone else should get a taste; but number four saw a
chance, and snapped hold of the other end of the worm and swallowed ever
so much, till at last he and his brother had their heads close together;
when they began to pull and quarrel--quarrel and pull--till Mrs
Spottleover turned her own beak into a pair of scissors, snipped the
disputed morsel in two, boxed both the offenders' ears, said she would
take the worm away--but did not, as it was all gone--and then flew off
for a fresh supply.

In came father with three green caterpillars fresh from off the
cauliflowers, popped them in as many beaks, and he, too, flew off on his
day's work to hunt out savoury morsels for his little tyrant-like
children.

"I can fly,"