t screeching nightingale's in the hawthorn yonder?"

But he had no sooner finished than another one began in the fir copse,
and said he was captain of one thousand pigeons, and was ever so much
stronger, and could fly ten miles an hour faster. So away went the first
pigeon to the fir copse, and there was a great clattering of wings and
"oo-whoo"-ing, and how it was settled Bevis could not tell.

So as he went on swinging, he heard all the birds quarrelling, and
boasting, and fighting, hundreds of them all around, and he said to the
chaffinch on the ash:--

"Chaffinch, it seems to me that you are all very wicked birds, for you
think of nothing but fighting all day long".

The chaffinch laughed, and said: "My dear Sir Bevis, I do not know what
you mean by wicked. But fighting is very nice indeed, and we all feel
so jolly when fighting time comes. For you must know that the spring is
the duelling time, when all the birds go to battle. There is not a tree
nor a bush on your papa's farm, nor on all the farms all around, nor in
all the country, nor in all this island, but some fighting is going on.
I have not time to tell you all about it; but I wish you could read our
history, and all about the wars that have been going on these thousand
years. Perhaps if you should ever meet the squirrel he will tell you,
for he knows most about history. As we all like it so much, it must be
right, and we never hurt one another very much. Sometimes a feather is
knocked out, and sometimes one gets a hard peck; but it does not do any
harm. And after it is over, in the autumn, we are all very good friends,
and go hunting together. You may see us, hundreds of us in your papa's
stubble-fields, Bevis, all flying together very happy. I think the
skylarks fight the most, for they begin almost in the winter if the sun
shines warm for an hour, and they keep on all day in the summer, and
till it is quite dark and the stars are out, besides getting up before
the cuckoo to go on again. Yet they are the sweetest and nicest of all
the birds, and the most gentle, and do not mind our coming into their
fields. So I am sure, Bevis, that you are wrong, and fighting is not
wicked if you love one another. You and Mark are fond of one another,
but you hit him sometimes, don't you?"

"Yes, that I do," said Bevis, very eagerly, "I hit him yesterday so
hard with my bat that he would not come and play with me. It is very
nice to hit any one."

"But you cannot d