The Life of the Fly 



hair and line straw! It's the first I have ever 

 found, the first of the joys which the birds are 

 to bring me. And in this nest are six eggs, 

 laid prettily side by side; and those eggs are a 

 magnificent blue, as though steeped in a dye 

 of celestial azure. Overpowered with happi- 

 ness, I lie down on the grass and stare. 



Meanwhile, the mother, with a little clap 

 of her gullet — 'Tack! Tack!' — flies an- 

 xiously from stone to stone, not far from the 

 intruder. My age knows no pity, is still too 

 barbarous to understand maternal anguish. A 

 plan is running in my head, a plan worthy of a 

 little beast of prey. I will come back in a 

 fortnight and collect the nestlings before they 

 can fly away. In the meantime, I will just take 

 one of those pretty blue eggs, only one, as a 

 trophy. Lest it should be crushed, I place the 

 fragile thing on a little moss in the scoop of 

 my hand. Let him cast a stone at me that has 

 not, in his childhood, known the rapture of 

 finding his first nest. 



My delicate burden, which would be ruined 

 by a false step, makes me give up the re- 

 mainder of the climb. Some other day I shall 

 see the trees on the hill-top over which the 

 sun rises. I go down the slope again. At the 

 bottom, I meet the parish-priest's curate read- 



3QO 



