Page:Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy, Stockton, 1872.djvu/242

232 Soon there appeared hovering over them a snowy cloud. As it I floated nearer it proved to be a magnificent Pelican with its gigantic wings outspread. It alighted near the Cormorants, at the foot of a little grassy hill. It was an old male bird, very wise and very cunning. He greeted his cousin Cormorants cordially, but, ruffling up the crest of curled feathers on his head, and shaking his half-folded wings, angrily, he looked askance at the Bittern.

Now the Bittern is a very unsocial bird, and as he took not the least notice of the new comer, the Pelican could not pick a quarrel with him. Therefore he turned to his cousins, and said: "I have just come from my pleasant home on a rocky island. The waters make music there all day long, and the green moss gleams through the white foam, and gay-colored fish sparkle in the sunlight; so that when men behold it they exclaim: 'See! what a beautiful spot!' There are some birds that like dingy pools, where only coarse rushes grow, where there is nothing but blight and mildew, where even carrion crows will not fly, and at which men shudder."

Now this exactly described the places the Bittern prefers to all others; but, as he really considered them very captivating, and hated the very sight of mankind, he did not feel abashed by the Pelican's stinging rebuke, and perhaps took it for a compliment; and there is no knowing how long he would have staid there, if a frisky little Hoopoe had not chanced to alight on a tree that had fallen across a foaming brook not very far from the group of birds.

Not liking so much company, the Bittern stalked away. The Hoopoe nodded so often to the birds that its beautiful tall crest trembled as if a breeze stirred it, and having preened its prettily-barred feathers for awhile, it began to talk as fast as ever it could.

"I have came from a long distance, and only stopped twice on my way to get a meal of insects, which I can dig out of decaying wood