vishly, leaving one tail-feather in our friend's beak; and
finally he flew down to the road.

In the road, he first of all buried his face in snow, then fell on his
side, deep snow not being, he discovered, an ideal medium in which to
get about on one leg. During that performance his rivals could have
abolished him five times over if they had had the heart to unite. But
they seemed to think otherwise, and had not the heart for anything.
They sat still, with that helpless abandon that afflicts fowls and
other birds in disaster, and they seemed about to starve practically on
the spot, if left alone.

Our thrush, however, did not leave them alone. They were a direct
threat to his only line of communication with life, so to
speak--namely, food. Wherefore, either they or he must go. Soon he
found that cart-ruts make convenient roads for the birds in the snow,
or perhaps it was the chaffinches, who were following one another in
lines along the cart-ruts, who showed him.

Then and there, in the road, our thrush seemed to go berserk. He
landed upon the thrush nearest to him, spread-eagled and hammering like
a feathered devil. There was a whirl of brown feathers and finely
powdered snow for about ten seconds, at the end of which time that
other thrush detached himself and fled, oven as his conqueror hurled
himself upon the next bird.

There were two here, side by side, but neither was quick enough to
parry our friend's lightning lunges, after he had beaten down their
guard with his wings; and they, too, got up and winged into the leaden,
frowning sky. The others did not wait. They had seen all they wanted
to, apparently, and would take no part in the play. They faded out
among the drifting snowflakes, over the still, white fields, and our
thrush was left to the lawn, and the bread, and the swarming
chaffinches, whom he easily kept aloof, and--yes, there was no getting
away from it--the one thrush on the summer-house who, you will note,
had never moved. But when he looked he found that thrush was not on
the summer-house, but on the lawn, eating bread; and when he flew down
to the lawn to investigate--he flew and landed very clumsily--he made a
discovery that seemed to surprise him; or did he already know it?
Anyway, the thrush on the lawn was a lady, and--well, what would you?
The cripple balanced as well as he could, and looked foolish. It was
all he could do.

The day passed swiftly, and faded out in blinding