and sometimes the
greenfinches used to go to see how the radish seeds were getting on, and
taking tight hold of the thread-like shoots, pull them out of the
ground, and leave them upon the top of the bed, fast asleep, for they
never grew any more. Still, take it altogether, there was always twice
as much fruit where there were plenty of birds, as where they were all
driven away.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

AN ODD STRANGER.

There was one bird used to run about Greenlawn on a fine morning,
hunting for tiny spiders and flies; he was a little, slim, dapper
fellow, with a long tail, and whenever he jumped about a little way, or
settled upon the ground, he used to make his long tail go wipple-wapple,
up and down, as if he had shaken it loose; but it was only a funny habit
of his, like that of Mrs Hedgesparrow, who was always shaking and
shuffling her wings about. A fast runner was Mr Wagtail, and fine fun
it was to see him skimming along the top of the ground in chase of a fly
to take home to his wife, who used to live in a nest in the bank close
by the hole over the pond, where old Ogrebones--blue-backed Billy the
kingfisher, had his house, and used to spread the bones of his fishy
little victims about the grass.

One day Walter Wagtail was running along the ground after a fly, and was
going to snap him up, when--"bob"--he was gone in an instant; and
Wagtail found himself standing before--oh! such an ugly thing, with two
bright, staring eyes; a bloated, rough, dirty-looking body; four crooked
legs, no neck, no wings, no tail, and such a heavy stomach, that he was
obliged to crawl about with it resting upon the ground.

"Heugh! you horrid, ugly-looking thing," said Wagtail; "you swallowed my
fly. Where do you come from? what's your name? who's your father and
mother, and what made you so ugly?"

"Ugly, indeed," said the pudgy thing; "what do you mean by ugly? Just
you go to the bottom of the pond and lie under the mud, old
fluffy-jacket, and stop there for a week, and see how you would look
with your fine gingerbread black and white feathers sticking to your
sides all muddy and wet. Who would look ugly then? Not you! oh no."

"But I shouldn't be such a round, rough, clay-tod as you are, old
no-neck," said the wagtail, ruffling his feathers up at the very idea of
getting them damp.

"No, you wouldn't, you miserable whipper-snapper," croaked the other,
settling himself down on the flowerbed, so that he could hardly be