Half an hour later the motor puffed into the stable yard, and close
behind it cantered Tim, looking a most angelic little donkey.

'Can't make the little beast out,' said Major Raeburn to his wife, as
they walked towards the house; 'I shall take him out myself to-morrow.'

(_Concluded on page 410._)

THE SINGING BIRD.

A singing bird within my heart
Has surely built a nest,
For every morning when I rise
So early from my rest,
I find a song for me to sing
Is waiting in my breast.

One song is of the flowers bright,
That nod in every breeze,
Of birds that in the tree-tops dwell,
Of butterflies and bees,
Of fairy-haunted woodland ways,
And tall, dark, swaying trees.

Another song it softly croons
As from a far-off land:
But this a deeper meaning has,
I don't quite understand,
Because of all the mysteries
That lie so close at hand.

These sweet songs thrill me with delight--
I carol them all day;
I hope that cheerful singing bird
Has really come to stay;
But whence it came and why it's here
I'm sure I cannot say.

HUGE BIRDS.

Travellers in all parts of the world hear strange and surprising tales
about the huge or wonderful creatures which the natives have seen, so
they say, and which, perhaps, they also declare they have hunted years
ago. People believed all these stories formerly, and put them in books
for the benefit of others; but matters have altered now. Travellers'
tales are not so plentiful, because they are not deceived as they used
to be, and when they are told, their truth is searched out. The
sea-serpent, for instance, has been 'seen' many times, and once at
least--in 1906--by properly trained scientific observers. But people are
still unwilling to believe entirely in its existence.

Some of the commonest stories brought home from far countries have been
about the existence of gigantic birds, and, when we look into these, we
find they are not all fables. In many countries, birds quite unlike any
now seen, and of huge bulk, existed before man's time; and it is evident
that a few of these bird-monsters--shall we call them?--did not vanish
till a recent date, so that human beings had the chance of making
acquaintance with them.

Australia, New Zealand, and other countries that are on the opposite
side of the world to Britain, are the home of many curious forms of
life, animal or vegetable. New Zealand ha