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Alike through dreaming and through dreamless hours Life moves among these, handling and considering each of the unredeemable multitude; and when morning light strikes the dark chimneys again and they rush forth, some that entered young have matured; some of the old have become infirm; many of which have dropped in singly issue as companies; and young broods flutter forth, unaccountable nestlings of a night, which were not in yesterday's blue at all.
In quiet weather mesa days have no parallel for stillness, but the night silence breaks into certain mellow or poignant notes. Late afternoons the burrowing owls may be seen blinking at the doors of their hummocks with perhaps four or five elfish nestlings arow, and by twilight begin a soft whoo-oo-ing, rounder, sweeter, more incessant in mating time.
Not only do most of the females of the feathered world retain their dull coats throughout the year, but some deface even this to form feather beds for the precious eggs and nestlings, to protect which bright colours must be entirely foregone. The spring is the time when decorations are seen at their best.
Why, I'm positively shaking, I can scarcely speak, I can scarcely think properly. What would the children say if they saw their Prissie now? And I'm the girl who is to fight the world, and kill the dragon, and make a home for the nestlings. Don't I feel like it! Don't I look like it! Don't I just loathe myself! How hideously I do my hair, and what a frightful dress I have on.
Perhaps, by your favour, I shall accomplish my task and avenge my brothers. In reply the Simurgh. first blessed the deliverer of his children, and then went on: 'What you have done no child of man has ever done before; you assuredly have a claim on all my help, for every year up till now that dragon has come here and has destroyed my nestlings, and I have never been able to find who was the murderer and to avenge myself.
I have seen similar conduct in a wild pair: the female defending her nestlings against some fancied danger, scolding, flying around the intruder, and taking the whole care upon herself; while her spouse occupied the topmost twig of the tree on which his family was in trouble, uttering at short intervals his musical cry of distress, one rich, loud note.
Busy birds flapped and flew, doing their marketing, and fetching breakfast to hungry nestlings, chirping and whistling to each other, as they did so, that the sun was up and it was a fine day. A pair of striped squirrels frisked and laughed and called out something saucy as Archie trotted by. None of these wild things feared the child: he was too small and too quick in his movements to be fearful.
The money-lender then gave his decision, which was in favour of the party who had given him the most valuable present; he decided that the young birds must stay where they were. "But," protested the egret "how have my white nestlings become black?" "That is quite natural" answered the money-lender, "a white cow may have a black or brown calf: why should not you have black young ones?"
Young cuckoos and kingfishers are the quaintest of young birds. Their plumage does not come out a little at a time, as in other nestlings, but the sheaths which surround the growing feathers remain until they are an inch or more in length; then one day, in the space of only an hour or so, the overlapping armour of bluish tiles bursts and the plumage assumes a normal appearance.
And all so still! As the children stood there they could catch nestlings' faint cries, stirrings of dead leaves and twigs, as birds and beasts moved to their homes; the cooing of the rooks about the black branches seemed to promise that this world should be for ever tranquil, for ever cloistered and removed; the sun, red and flaming above the dark wood, flung white mists hither and thither to veil its departure.
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