Ragfgylug 



was supposed to abstain from all flesh food. But 

 it was shrewdly suspected that he needed but 

 a chance to indulge in a diet of rabbit. When 

 at last one dark night he was killed while raid- 

 ing Olifant's hen-house, Molly, so far from feel- 

 ing a pang of regret, took possession of his cosy 

 nest with a sense of unbounded relief. 



IV 



Bright August sunlight was flooding the 

 Swamp in the morning. Everything seemed 

 soaking in the warm radiance. A little brown 

 swamp-sparrow was teetering on a long rush in 

 the pond. Beneath him there were open spaces 

 of dirty water that brought down a few scraps 

 of the blue sky, and worked it and the yellow 

 duckweed into an exquisite mosaic, with a little 

 wrong-side picture of the bird in the middle. 

 On the bank behind was a great vigorous growth 

 of golden green skunk-cabbage, that cast dense 

 shadow over the brown swamp tussocks. 



The eyes of the swamp-sparrow were not 

 trained to take in the color glories, but he saw 

 what we might have missed ; that two of the 



112 



