Page:Bill the minder.djvu/105

 GOOD AUNT GALLADIA parrots, Australian gheck ghees, the laughing grete, Malay anchovy wren that only feeds upon anchovies (and very amusing indeed it is, too, to watch them spearing the little fish with their beaks and then trying to shake them off again), and the golden-crested mussel hawk, that swoops down from an incredible height and, snatching its prey from the rocks, again disappears in the sky. Without wearying you with a long list, nearly every known bird was represented in my aunt's collection, from the fierce saw-beaked stork of Tuscaroca to the mild and pretty little Gossawary chick.

'Much as she prized every one of her pets, she loved most of all the very rare and beautiful green-toed button crane of Baraboo. So fond was she of the stately creature, and so careful of its every comfort, that she employed a maid to wait on it alone, and a special cook to prepare its meal of Peruvian yap beans, the delicious and tender kernels of which the dainty creature was inordinately fond of,—and, indeed, they were the only food upon which it throve.

'Now, with your permission, a few words about myself. Like my aunt I, too, had birdish leanings, but unlike her in this, that instead of birds I collected birds' eggs, of which I had a vast number of every conceivable variety. Ashamed as I am to state it, little did my good Aunt Galladia know how many of the valuable specimens in my collection were taken from her aviaries. Nevertheless she viewed my 69