Silverspot 



worried by kingbirds. Not that these did him 

 much harm, but they were such noisy pests 

 that he avoided their company as quickly as 

 possible, just as a grown man avoids a conflict 

 with a noisy and impudent small boy. He 

 had some cruel tricks, too. He had a way 

 of going the round of the small birds' nests 

 each morning to eat the new laid eggs, as 

 regularly as a doctor visiting his patients. But 

 we must not judge him for that, as it is just 

 what we ourselves do to the hens in the barn- 

 yard. 



His quickness of wit was often shown. One 

 flay I saw him flying down the ravine with a 

 ferge piece of bread in his bill. The stream 

 below him was at this time being bricked over 

 as a sewer. There was one part of two hundred 

 yards quite finished, and, as he flew over the 

 open water just above this, the bread fell from 

 his bill, and was swept by the current out of 

 sight into the tunneL He flew down and 

 peered vainly into the dark cavern, then, act- 

 ing upon a happy thought, he flew to the down- 

 stream end of the tunnel, and awaiting the re- 

 appearance of the floating bread, as it was swept 



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