WAS IT A SEQUEL? 63 



blue-grays. The day the gnat's eggs hatched, 

 the old folks performed most ludicrously. Per- 

 haps they were young parents, and this being 

 their first brood, maternal and paternal love had 

 not yet blinded their eyes to the ridiculous ; 

 so that they looked down on these skinny, squirm- 

 ing, big-eyeballed prodigies with mingled emo- 

 tions. It looked very much as if they were sur- 

 prised to find that their smooth pretty eggs had 

 suddenly turned into these ugly, weak, hungry 

 things they did not know what to do with. At 

 first it seemed that something must be wrong at 

 the nest ; the little gnat shook her wings and 

 tail beside it as if afraid of soiling herself ; and 

 when she hopped into it, jerked out again and 

 flitted around distractedly. Every time the 

 birds looked into the nest they got so excited 

 that, had they been girls, they surely would have 

 hopped up and down wringing their hands. I 

 laughed right out alone in the brush, they acted 

 so absurdly. 



They began feeding the nestlings in the most 

 remarkable way I had ever witnessed. When the 

 young mother was on the nest her mate came 

 and brought her the food, whereupon, instead of 

 jumping off the nest and feeding the young in 

 the conventional way, she simply raised up on 

 her feet and, apparently, poked the food back- 

 wards into the bills of the young under her 

 breast ! Even when the gnats got to feeding 



