OMAN.]

The swans flapped their wings and arched their necks, as if they would
send her a greeting, and the Viking's wife spread out her arms
towards them, as if she felt all this; and smiled through her tears,
and then stood sunk in deep thought.

Then all the storks arose, flapping their wings and clapping with
their beaks, to start on their voyage towards the South.

"We will not wait for the swans," said stork-mamma: "if they want to
go with us they had better come. We can't sit here till the plovers
start. It is a fine thing, after all, to travel in this way, in
families, not like the finches and partridges, where the male and
female birds fly in separate bodies, which appears to me a very
unbecoming thing. What are yonder swans flapping their wings for?"

"Well, everyone flies in his own fashion," said stork-papa: "the swans
in an oblique line, the cranes in a triangle, and the plovers in a
snake's line."

"Don't talk about snakes while we are flying up here," said
stork-mamma. "It only puts ideas into the children's heads which can't
be gratified."

* * * * *

"Are those the high mountains of which I heard tell?" asked Helga, in
the swan's plumage.

"They are storm clouds driving on beneath us," replied her mother.

"What are yonder white clouds that rise so high?" asked Helga again.

"Those are the mountains covered with perpetual snow which you see
yonder," replied her mother.

And they flew across the lofty Alps towards the blue Mediterranean.

"Africa's land! Egypt's strand!" sang, rejoicingly, in her swan's
plumage, the daughter of the Nile, as from the lofty air she saw her
native land looming in the form of a yellowish wavy stripe of shore.

And all the birds caught sight of it, and hastened their flight.

"I can scent the Nile mud and wet frogs," said stork-mamma; "I begin
to feel quite hungry. Yes; now you shall taste something nice; and you
will see the maraboo bird, the crane, and the ibis. They all belong to
our family, though they are not nearly so beautiful as we. They give
themselves great airs, especially the ibis. He has been quite spoilt
by the Egyptians, for they make a mummy of him and stuff him with
spices. I would rather be stuffed with live frogs, and so would you,
and so you shall. Better have something in one's inside while one is
alive than to be made a fuss with after one is dead. That's my
opinion, and I am always right."

"Now the stor