Three Feathered Mites 
they go, some right-side up, and some 
upside-down, and all of them cutting all 
sorts of merry capers, and saying to each 
other in their bottle-tit language, ‘ zi-zi 
—zi-zi. That means, ‘ Here I am, follow 
me,’ and they all follow one another 
through the world, keeping together. 
Other birds, when they grow big 
enough to feed themselves, leave their 
parents altogether and never see them 
again, or if they do see them, dont 
know them any more than if they were 
strangers. And the parents don’t mind 
a bit, because they very often make a 
new nest and lay another clutch of eggs, 
and soon have another family of young 
ones to feed, and are much too busy to 
think anything more of the first lot, and 
don’t want to be bothered with them. 
They have tenderly brought them up 
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