e ten times worse than Hookbeak,
the hawk, and if it were let loose here we should all be killed.
Pink-tchink-chink," she cried in alarm; for just then the man, who was a
falconer, took his bird's hood off, and shouted at the heron by the
pond. The great flap-winged bird immediately took flight, and then,
with a dash of its wings, away went the falcon, leaving Mrs Flutethroat
shivering with fear.

Flip-flap, flap-flip-flop went the heron's wings over the water; flip
and skim went the falcon's, and then away and away over the woods and
fields went the two birds, circling round and round, and higher and
higher; the falcon trying to get above the heron, so as to dart down
upon him and break his wings; and the heron, knowing that as long as he
kept up the falcon could not touch him, trying his best to keep the
higher. At last the swift-winged bird darted upwards, and hovering for
a moment over the poor heron, who cried out with fear, darted down with
a rush, and went so close that he rustled through the quill feathers of
the heron; and so swift was the dart he made, that he went down--down
far enough before he could stop himself, and then when he looked up
again, he saw that the heron had risen so high that there was no chance
of catching him again; so off he flew, and perched in the cedar-tree at
Greenlawn, where he sat cleaning and pruning his feathers, and
sharpening his ugly hooked beak till it had such a point that it would
have been a sad day for the poor bird who came in his clutches; while
his master, who had lost sight of him, was wandering away far enough
off, whistling to him to come back to his perch.

CHAPTER TEN.

FLAYEM, THE FALCON.

However, he was not left there long in peace, for the birds of Greenlawn
did not like such visitors; and the first notice they had of the
stranger was from Specklems, the starling, who flew up into the tree,
and then out again as though a wasp had stuck in his ear.

"Chur-chair-chark," he shouted, flying round and round, spitting and
sputtering, and making his head look like a hedgehog.
"Chur-chair-r-r-r," he cried, and very soon the whole of the birds in
the neighbourhood were out to see what it all meant.

"Now then, what's the matter?" said the magpie, coming up all in a
hurry. "Whose eggs are broken now? Anybody's little one tumbled out of
the nest into Mrs Puss's mouth, for me to get the blame?"

"Look--look in the cedar," shouted the birds; and up in the ced