and, and when let out of the coop would follow me to a certain
heap of dead leaves where worms abounded, and there, with the most
amusing eagerness, they pounced upon their wriggling prey, snatching the
worms out of each other's beak, and tumbling over one another in their
excitement, all the while making a special chirp of exceeding happiness.

They were named Tiny, Sir Francis Drake, and Luther--I fear the last
name had a covert allusion to the "Diet of Worms."

When the purple feathers began to show in their wings, and they
considered themselves quite too old to pay any allegiance to their
hen-mother, they began to absent themselves for some hours each
afternoon, and this, too, in a most secret fashion, for I could never
tell how they disappeared, but they returned in due time, walking
quietly in Indian file, and lay down in their coop. At last I traced
them to a pond a long distance off--it really seemed as if they had
scented the water, for they had to traverse a lawn and wood, go across a
drive, and through a hedge and field, and then the pond was in a hollow
where they could not possibly have seen it; but there I found my little
friends in high glee, darting over the surface of the water, splashing,
diving, sending up showers of spray from their wings, and going on as if
they were possessed. I called to them, and in a moment they quieted
down, and behaved exactly as children would have done when caught
tripping--they came out of the water and followed me, in the meekest and
most penitent manner, back to their home under the deodar.

These birds would stay the whole morning with me in perfect content if
they were allowed to nestle into a wool mat placed at the doorstep of
the French window leading out upon the lawn; there they would plume
themselves and sometimes preen each other, and I could watch the way in
which the feathers were drawn through the apparently awkward bill, yet I
suppose so suited for its various uses; anyway the feathers came out
from its manipulations as smooth and sleek as velvet, and when the
toilet was over the head found its rest behind the wing, and profound
sleep followed. Sometimes my friends would make a spring upon the sofa
by my side, I fear with a view to forthcoming worms, of which they well
knew I was the purveyor; and nothing could exceed the slyness of their
eyes as they looked up at me and mutely suggested an expedition to that
heap of leaves!

I must say I derived an immense