WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
dead leaves, in nooks which in winter had been 
empty, and when Mrs. Maguire tramped in and 
out of her cottage, her cracked boots cut little 
pools in the mud. Mrs. Maguire grumbled at 
the spring rain,because her "skiatics" responded 
to it as surely as did the hedge buds after an- 
other fashion. Not so the birds. One and all 
they hymned it royally all day, until at evening 
the clouds blew eastwards, and over the purple 
shoulder of the hindermost, the moon rose upon 
a clear sky. 
The sunset light began to fade from the woods 
long before it left the open fields and uplands. 
The blackbirds sang whole-heartedly in Cool- 
nabrock, and the air was full of the sweetness 
of breaking hedge buds. The fowls strolled in 
to roost, conversationally, and Spideogue came 
down to inspect the leavings of their meal. 
Shacaim, skulking among the cabbages, tripped 
out, and they ate together hastily, lest the rats 
should come out and take them unawares. 
Presently a chaffinch in the hedge began to cry 
regretfully. She had built her nest dangerously 
close to the ground even a cat clawing tiptoe 
might have reached it and consequently one 
by one, her red-clouded eggs had been raked 
out. To-night the last had disappeared, and, 
gliding down a runway, she saw the tip of the 
thief's naked tail. Shacaim scurried back to 
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