Tales of the birds

There is a certain quiet bit of land, just where two midland counties meet, that is in winter a favourite resort of the fieldfares. There they find all they need--the hedges are...

In the middle of the night Cocktail suddenly spoke: “Feltie,” he said, “we ought to have stayed in that park. If I had known what was coming I would have stayed, but one can’t k...

If the musician had not quarrelled with his brain, and if the struggle between them had not put his nerves all out of tune--if he had been then the gentle and sweet-tempered art...

One day he was left by his father with the Ducks, and was listening to their aristocratic conversation, taking a bathe in the water now and then, and preening himself in the sun...

“I expect it’s the _Monarch_,” he said. “I know she’s cruising about here. Just think, Molly! Some day perhaps you’ll hear the big guns and I shall be on board. And thinking of...

“What do you think it was about? Bird’s-nesting! He said it was cruel, I believe; and some one else said it wasn’t; and there they were chattering away all the evening. But I ha...

When May came the young birds were one day perching on the edges of their nests, and taking short flights to exercise their wings; Jetsom was among them, as fine a young bird as...

“Very,” said the man of science, without taking his pipe from his lips, and not in the least knowing what the other was thinking of. At this moment a young wagtail took a long r...

Early in the morning of that April day you might have seen a tiny bird fly in from the sea, and settle, more dead than alive, upon the top of the bank. Here the strong wind, com...

One well-known song was missing from the tall elm by the brook-side; and Flip, in spite of his excitement in singing, and his hopes that his courtship might be successful with a...

Mr. McNab lit his pipe, the better to resume his ordinary composure; and puffing at it with lips which now and then a convulsive movement almost compelled to laughter, he strode...