delightfully?"

"That is the King of the birds, before whom we must do reverence,"
replied the wolf; but it was only the wren.

"If that be so," said the bear, "I should like to see his royal
palace; come, lead me to it." "That cannot be as you like," replied
the wolf. "You must wait till the Queen returns." Soon afterward the
Queen arrived with some food in her bill, and the King, too, to feed
their young ones, and the bear would have gone off to see them, but
the wolf, pulling his ear, said: "No, you must wait till the Queen and
the King are both off again."

So, after observing well the situation of the nest, the two tramped
off, but the bear had no rest, for he wished still to see the royal
palace, and after a short delay he set off to it again. He found the
King and Queen absent, and, peeping into the nest, he saw five or six
young birds lying in it. "Is this the royal palace?" exclaimed the
bear; "this miserable place! You are no King's children, but wretched
young vagabonds." "No, no, that we are not!" burst out the little
wrens together in a great passion, for to them this speech was
addressed. "No, no, we are born of honorable parents, and you, Mr.
Bear, shall make your words good!" At this speech the bear and the
wolf were much frightened, and ran back to their holes; but the little
wrens kept up an unceasing, clamor till their parents' return. As soon
as they came back with food in their mouths the little birds began,
"We will none of us touch a fly's leg, but will starve rather, until
you decide whether we are fine and handsome children or not, for the
bear has been here and insulted us!"

"Be quiet," replied the King, "and that shall soon be settled." And
thereupon he flew with his Queen to the residence of the bear, and
called to him from the entrance, "Old grumbler, why have you insulted
my children? That shall cost you dear, for we will decide the matter
by a pitched battle."

War having thus been declared against the bear, all the four-footed
beasts were summoned: the ox, the ass, the cow, the goat, the stag,
and every animal on the face of the earth. The wren, on the other
hand, summoned every flying thing; not only the birds, great and
small, but also the gnat, the hornet, the bee, and the flies.

When the time arrived for the commencement of the war, the wren King
sent out spies to see who was appointed commander-in-chief of
the enemy. The gnat was the most cunning of all the army, and he,
t