insects that would otherwise destroy the things 
that were growing in the garden. 
It is hard to understand why he paid any at- 
tention to her, but he finally agreed to wait until 
she came home from school. In the meantime, 
she was to tell her teacher that these kingbirds 
were eating honey-bees, and to ask her whether 
there was any good reason why they should not 
be shot. 
That evening she came running home and 
in breathless excitement related what she had 
learned in school. It seems that the teacher 
had a book written by a man in Washington who 
had found out a great deal about what birds eat. 
In this book he said that, although kingbirds 
sometimes eat bees, they never eat the ones that 
gather honey, but catch only the drones. The 
drones in a bee-hive never work. All they do is 
to fly around a little for exercise; but most of the 
time they spend loafing about the hive eating 
the food that the workers bring. Therefore, 
who could object very much if one of these lazy 
fellows now and then disappeared down the 
throat of some hungry bird? 
40 
