The Burgess Bird Book for Children 



threatened to eat up the whole orchard, and they 

 stuffed themselves on those worms just the same as 

 they are stuffing themselves on cherries now. They 

 are very fond of small fruits but most of those they 

 eat are the wild kind which are of no use at all to 

 Farmer Brown or anybody else. Now just look at 

 that performance, will you ?" 



There were five of the Waxwings and they were 

 now seated side by side on a branch of the cherry- 

 tree. One of them had a plump cherry which he 

 passed to the next one. This one passed it on to 

 the next, and so it went to the end of the row and 

 halfway back before it was finally eaten. Peter 

 laughed right out. "Never in my life have I seen 

 such politeness," said he. 



"Huh!" exclaimed Jenny Wren. "I don't 

 believe it was politeness at all. I guess if you got at 

 the truth of the matter you would find that each 

 one was stuffed so full that he thought he didn't 

 have room for that cherry and so passed it along." 



"Well, I think that was politeness just the same," 

 retorted Peter. "The first one might have dropped 

 the cherry if he couldn't eat it instead of passing 

 it along." Just then the Waxwings flew away. 



It was the very middle of the summer before 



Peter Rabbit again saw Dandy the Waxwing. 



Quite by chance he discovered Dandy sitting on 



the tiptop of an evergreen tree, as if on guard. He 



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