eet before her
face, and looked quite pleased at the compliment.

"Don't listen to him," croaked the kingfisher, backing into his hole;
"he's a cheat, and a bad character, and thief, and a--"

But the heron here made a poke at his royal highness with his great
scissors bill, and the kingfisher scuffled out of sight in a fright,
having learnt the lesson that a small tyrant, however grandly he may
dress, is not always believed in; for with all his bright colours and
gaudy plumes he was no match for the great sober-hued, flap-winged
heron, who only laughed at him, and all his grand swaggering; and, as
soon as he was gone, settled himself down to his work, and caught fish
enough for a good meal, for he felt quite certain that he had as good a
right to the fish as the little king, who had had it his own way so long
that he thought everybody would give way to him.

Poke went the heron's bill, and out came a finny struggler; but it was
no use to kick, for Bluescrags never left go when once he had hold of a
fish, and he was just gobbling it down when--

"Hillo-ho-ho-o-o," cried a voice, and looking towards the place from
whence the sound proceeded, the heron, as he rose from the ground, saw a
man holding upon his hand a large sharp-winged bird, with a
cruel-looking mouth, like that belonging to Hookbeak, the hawk, who
sometimes passed over the garden, and such bright yellow and black
piercing eyes, that as soon as Bluescrags felt their glance meet his, he
turned all of a shiver, and his feathers began to ruffle up as though he
were wet. But there was no time to shiver or shake, for the great bird
was coming after him at a terrible rate, every beat of his pointed wings
sending him dashing through the air, and in another moment the strange,
fierce bird would have had the sharp claws he stretched out in the poor
heron, but for the sudden and frantic effort he made to escape.

All this while Mrs Flutethroat was crying, "Pink-pink-pink" in the
shrubbery, in a state of the greatest alarm, for a man had passed by the
place where she was teaching her young ones to fly, carrying a bird on
his gloved hand; while the bird had a curious cap upon its head, so
contrived that it could not see anything; but the blackbird could see
its yellow legs and cruel hooked claws that were stuck tightly into the
thick glove the man wore.

"Well," said Mrs Flutethroat, "I'm very glad he's a prisoner, for the
nasty, great, cruel-looking thing must b