BIRD STORIES 



ish tricks that kept him there. For, besides his own keen 

 appetite, he had now the hunger of the twdns to spur 

 him on. Such a hunter as he was in those days! Why, 

 he caught a thousand mosquitos on one trip; and meet- 

 ing a swarm of flying ants, thought nothing at all of 

 gobbling up five hundred before he stopped. Countless 

 flies went down his throat. And when the big, brown 

 bumping beetles, with hard, shiny wing-covers on their 

 backs and soft, fuzzy velvet underneath, flew out at 

 dusk, twenty or thirty of them, as likely as not, would 

 make a luncheon for Mis the clown. For he was lean 

 and hungry, and he ate and ate and ate; but he never 

 grew fat. He hunted zigzag through the twilight of the 

 evening and the twilight of the daT\m. When the nights 

 were bright and game was plenty, he hunted zigzag 

 through the moonlight. When the day was dull and 

 insects were on the wing, he hunted, though it was high 

 noon. And many a midnight rambler going home from 

 the theatre looked up, wondering what made the darting 

 shadows, and saw Mis and his fellows dashing busily 

 above where the night-insects were hovering about the 

 electric lights of the city streets. He hunted long and 

 he hunted well; but so keen was his appetite and so huge 

 the hunger of his twins, that it took the mother, too, to 

 keep the meals provided in the Nomer home. 



I think they were never unhappy about it, for there 



146 



