se voice, "am I to wait all day
while you introduce those miserable little insignificant grub-eaters?"

"Be quiet!" cried Policeman Bluejay, sternly.

"I won't," snapped the raven.

It happened so quickly that the children saw nothing before they heard
the thump of the club against the raven's head.

"Caw--waw--waw--waw! Murder! Help!" screamed the big bird, and flew
away from the tree as swiftly as his ragged wings would carry him.

"Let him go," said a sweet brown mocking-bird. "The rowdy is always
disturbing our social gatherings, and no one will miss him if he
doesn't come back."

"He is not fit for polite society," added a nuthatcher, pruning her
scarlet wings complacently.

So the policeman tucked the club under his wing again and proceeded
with the introductions, the pewees and the linnets being next presented
to the strangers, and then the comical little chicadees, the orioles,
bobolinks, thrushes, starlings and whippoorwills, the latter appearing
sleepy because, they explained, they had been out late the night
before.

These smaller birds all sat in rows on the limbs beside Twinkle and
Chubbins; but seated upon the stouter limbs facing them were rows of
bigger birds who made the child-larks nervous by the sharp glances from
their round, bright eyes. Here were blackbirds, cuckoos, magpies,
grosbeaks and wood-pigeons, all nearly as big and fierce-looking as
Policeman Bluejay himself, and some so rugged and strong that it seemed
strange they would submit to the orders of the officer of the law. But
the policeman kept a sharp watch upon these birds, to see that they
attempted no mischievous pranks, and they must have been afraid of him
because they behaved very well after the saucy raven had left them.
Even the chattering magpies tried to restrain their busy tongues, and
the blackbirds indulged in no worse pranks than to suddenly spread
their wings and try to push the pigeons off the branch.

Several beautiful humming-birds were poised in the air above this
gathering, their bodies being motionless but their tiny wings
fluttering so swiftly that neither Twinkle nor Chubbins could see them
at all.

Policeman Bluejay, having finally introduced all the company to the
child-larks, began to relate the story of their adventures, telling the
birds how the wicked tuxix had transformed them into the remarkable
shapes they now possessed.

"For the honor of our race," he said, "we must each and every one guard
t