152 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



parallel to that of the cuckoo and hedge-sparrow. 

 Let us imagine that some malicious Arabian 

 Night's genius had snatched up the infant male 

 child of a Scandinavian couple — the largest of 

 their nation; and flying away to Africa with it, 

 to the heart of the great Aruwhimi forest had 

 laid it on the breast of a little coffee-coloured, 

 woolly-headed, spindle-shanked, pot-bellied, pigmy 

 mother, taking away at the same time her own 

 newly-born babe; that she had tenderly nursed 

 the substituted child, and reared and protected 

 it, ministering, according to her lights, to all its 

 huge wants, until he had come to the fullness of 

 his stature, yet never suspected, that the mag- 

 nificent, ivory-limbed giant, with flowing yellow 

 locks and cerulean eyes, was not the child of her 

 own womb. 



