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Updated: May 18, 2025
Old Ogrebones, the kingfisher, lay snug at the bottom of his hole in the bank; while all the tender birds were far-off in milder climes, where flies were to be caught, and where the sun shone bright and warm.
"Croak," said the green nose, and dived under the water; and then the wagtail saw that it was a light-green thing, with longer legs than the toad, and that it swam to the bottom and stopped. Just then old Ogrebones, the kingfisher, came skimming along like a blue flash over the pond, and he settled on a twig near his hole in the bank. "Morning, neighbour," said he to the wagtail.
So he ran to the blue bird's hole, and sticking in his little thin body, he ran up it to the nest, shouting, "Neighbour, neighbour; thieves, thieves!" "Where, where?" said Ogrebones the kingfisher. "Here; running away with your fish by the dozen," said the wagtail. "Well, get out of the way," said the kingfisher, bustling out of the nest and going towards the mouth of the hole.
"There," said Ogrebones, "I've got him this time, and not without trying. I've missed this little chap twice over, but when once Mrs K inside there takes him in hand, he will have no chance; for it will be eggs and crumb, and frying-pan with him in no time."
So then old Ogrebones disappeared within his hole; Wagtail betook himself to his nest to relate his morning's experiences to the patient Mrs Wagtail, who, like many other friends and relatives, was busy keeping her eggs warm; and so the pond was for the moment vacated by the birds; but it was not alone for all that, for a pretty place was that pond, just at the bottom of Greenlawn a pond rich in life of all kinds; this was where the blue-eyed forget-me-not was always peeping up at the passers-by; there grew the yellow water-lily floating amongst its great dark green leaves, like a golden cup offered by the water fairies for drinking the clear crystal liquid.
Don't you know who I am?" said the kingfisher, sitting upon a spray and looking very self-satisfied and important. "No," said the heron; "I don't know you. But you are not a bad-looking little fellow; only you are small very small. Why, where are your legs?" "Come, now," said Ogrebones, "none of your impudence, old longshanks. I'm the king the kingfisher; and I order you off; so go at once."
Now the wagtail thought this very strange behaviour, when he had taken the trouble to let old Ogrebones know, and so he very wisely made up his mind never to interfere with other people's business again; for, said he, as he got out of the hole at last, "I don't know but what the heron has as good a right to the fish as old surly has; at all events, I'll never fetch him out any more."
"You don't say so?" said the wagtail, who had not the least idea what a tadpole was, unless it was the pole the gardener used to pull the weeds out of the pond with. "You don't say so?" "O yes!" said Ogrebones; "it's a fact; I tried to eat one once, but couldn't get on with it at all. You see, I'm an English bird, and not French, so that I cannot manage frog."
Old Ogrebones was the great man of the place; but, in the cool of the evening, out would come sailing from the midst of the little reed island, and flicking their round stumpy tails, the moor hens swimming away, to the great disgust of the white ducks, who said they were only impostors, and had no business to swim, because they had no webs to their feet, but only long straggling toes.
A fast runner was Mr Wagtail, and fine fun it was to see him skimming along the top of the ground in chase of a fly to take home to his wife, who used to live in a nest in the bank close by the hole over the pond, where old Ogrebones blue-backed Billy the kingfisher, had his house, and used to spread the bones of his fishy little victims about the grass.
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