THE FLYING CLOWN 



is a certain satisfaction in doing well what we can do; 

 and there is no doubt that these birds were made to 

 be hunters. Mis and his kind swept the air, of course, 

 because they and their young were hungry; but the game 

 they caught, had it gone free to lay its myriad eggs, 

 would have cost many a farmer a fortune in sprays to 

 save his crops, and would have added untold discom- 

 fort to dwellers in country and city alike. 



Although Mis, under his feathers, was much smaller 

 than one would think to look at him, there were several 

 large things about him besides his appetite. His mouth 

 was almost huge, and reached way around to the sides 

 of his head under his eyes. It opened up more like the 

 mouth of a frog or a toad than like that of most birds. 

 When he hunted he kept it yawning wide open, so that 

 it made a trap for many an unlucky insect that flew 

 straight in, without ever knowing what happened to it 

 when it disappeared down the great hollow throat, into 

 a stomach so enormous that it hardly seems possible 

 that a bird less than twice the size of Mis could own it. 



There were other odd things about him, too — for 

 instance, the comb he wore on his middle toe-nail. What 

 he did with it, I can^t say. He did n't seem to do very 

 much with his feet anyway. They were rather feeble 

 little things, and he never used them in carrying home 

 anything he caught. He did n't even use them as most 



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