Its Enemy Had Found And
Struck It Down, And With Its Hard, Sharp Little Beak Had
Drilled A Hole In One Of The Upper Plates Of Its Abdomen, And
From That Small Opening Had Cunningly Extracted All The Meat.
Though Still Alive It Was Empty As A Blown Eggshell.
Poor
queen and mother, you survived the winter in vain, and went
abroad in vain in the bitter weather
In quest of bread to
nourish your few first-born - the grubs that would help you by
and by; now there will be no bread for them, and for you no
populous city in the flowery earth and a great crowd of
children to rise up each day, when days are long, to call you
blessed! And he who did this thing, the unspeakable oxeye
with his black and yellow breast - "catanic black and amber" -
even while I made my lamentation was tinkling his merry song
overhead in the windy elms.
The birds that lived on the huge cathedral itself had the
greatest attraction for me; and here the daws, if not the most
numerous, were the most noticeable, as they ever are on
account of their conspicuousness in their black plumage, their
loquacity and everlasting restlessness. Far up on the ledge
from which the spire rises a kestrel had found a cosy corner
in which to establish himself, and one day when I was there a
number of daws took it on themselves to eject him: they
gathered near and flew this way and that, and cawed and cawed
in anger, and swooped at him, until he could stand their
insults no longer, and, suddenly dashing out, he struck and
buffeted them right and left and sent them screaming with fear
in all directions.
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