“I think that you are rather conceited, Mr. Adder,” said Tommy Smith. “The grass-snake is very clever. He can lay eggs, and he says that is more than you can do.”

“I should be ashamed to do such a thing,” said the adder. “A young grass-snake requires an egg, but a young adder knows how to do without one. We can crawl as soon as we come into the world. As for my being conceited, perhaps I am, just a little. But that is natural. I can never forget that I have poison flowing in my veins. Now I will say good-bye, for I have plenty to do, and must not waste my time any longer.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Adder,” Tommy Smith called after him, for he thought he had better be friendly with such an animal. “I hope that you will never bite me.” But the adder merely gave a contemptuous hiss, and was gone.

CHAPTER VII.
THE PEEWIT

“To eat peewit’s eggs to a peewit seems wrong,
So a hen MAY think hen’s eggs to hens should belong.”

“PEE-WEE-EET! Pee-wee-eet!” That is what a bird kept saying as he flew in circles round Tommy Smith. Sometimes he flew quite a long way off, and sometimes he came so near him that it seemed as if he would settle on his head. “Pee-wee-eet! Pee-wee-eet!” And what a pretty bird this was! How his white breast glanced in the sun, and how the glossy green feathers of his back shone in it. He kept turning about in the air as he flew, so that Tommy Smith could see every part of him.

In fact, this bird was playing the strangest antics. Sometimes he would clap his wings together above his back, at least Tommy Smith thought he did; and then he would make such a swishing and whizzing with them, that really it was quite a loud noise—almost like a steam-engine. Then, all at once, he would turn sideways and make a dive down towards the ground, and sometimes (this was the funniest trick of all) he would tumble right over in the air, as if he had lost his balance and was really falling. If Tommy Smith had ever seen a tumbler pigeon it would have reminded him of one, but he never had. And all the while this bird kept on calling out, “Pee-wee-eet! pee-wee-eet!” as if he wanted Tommy Smith to speak to him, as, perhaps, he did.

“I know what bird you are,” said Tommy Smith. “I have often seen you flying over the fields, but you have never come so close to me before. I think your name is”—