Featherland: How the Birds lived at Greenlawn

by George Manville Fenn

“Low down, low down, sitting in the tussock brown,
Little mate, the sky is beaming; little mate, earth wears no frown.
Higher, higher; higher, higher; toward the cloudflecks nigher, nigher,
Round and round I circle, singing; higher, higher ever winging;
Over meadow, over streamlet,
Over glistening dew, and beamlet
Flashing from the pearl-hung grasses,
Where the sun in flashes passes;
Over where sweet matey’s sitting;
Ever warbling, fluttering, flitting;
Praising, singing—singing, praising;
Higher still my song I’m raising.
Sky-high, sky-high; higher—higher—higher—higher,
Little matey, watch your flier;
Sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet—sweet;
Here the merry breezes meet,
Where I twitter, circling higher,
Watch me flying higher, higher.
Low down, low down, nestling in the tussock brown,
Little mate, I’m coming down.”

“Well, that beats the owl hollow,” said Mr Specklems to his wife. “I think I could sing as well myself though, if it was not for this constant feeling of having a cold. There must have been a draught where I was hatched, and I’ve never recovered it. I can’t think how he manages to sing and fly too at the same time: I can’t. Why, I should be out of breath in no time.”

“There, don’t be a booby,” said his wife; “you are not a song-bird at all. I heard the crow say we were distant relations of his, and no one would for a moment think that he was a singer.”

“Hark at her now!” said Specklems, “not a singer; why, what does she call that?” And then the vain little bird whistled and sputtered and cizzled away till he was quite out of breath, when his wife laughed at him so merrily, but told him that she liked his whistle better than the finest trill the skylark ever made; and so then Specklems said that after all he thought the crow might be right, but, at all events, the Specklems could do something better than cry “Caw-waw” when they opened their beaks.

Just then who should come buzzing along but a wasp, a regular gorgeous fellow, all black and gold, and with such a thin waist that he looked almost cut in two.

“Now then, old spiketail,” said the starling, “keep your distance; none of your stinging tricks here, or I’ll cut that waist of yours in two with one snip.”

“Who wants to sting, old peck-path?” said the wasp. “It’s very hard one can’t go about one’s work without being always sneered and jeered and fleered at by every body.”

“Work,” said the starling, “ho-ho-ho, work; why, you don’t work; you’re always buzzing about, and idling; it’s only bees that work and make honey.”

“There now,” said the wasp, “that’s the way you people go on: you hear somebody say that the bees are industrious and we are idle, and then you believe it, and tell everybody else so, but you never take the trouble to see if it’s true; and so we poor wasps have to go through the world with a bad name, and people say we sting. Well, so we do if we are touched; and so do bees too, just as bad as we do, only the little gluttons make a lot of sweet honey and wax, and so they get all the praise.”

And then away went the little black-and-yellow fellow with his beautiful gauzy wings shining in the sun, and he flew over the garden wall, and was soon scooping away at a ripe golden-yellow plum that was hanging from the wall just ready to pick; and then off he flew again to his nest, where dozens more wasps were going in and out of the hole in a fallen willow-tree, all soft like touchwood, and in it the wasps had scooped out such a hole, where they had been working away quite as hard and industriously as the bees their cousins; and here they had made comb, and cells, and stored up food, and instead of their cells being made of wax, they were composed of beautiful paper that these busy little insects had made. There were grubs, too, and eggs that would turn to grubs, and afterwards to wasps; and here the wasps worked away, in and out all day, as busy as could be. But they had a very hard life of it, for everyone was trying to kill the poor things, and set traps for them to tumble into and be smothered in sweet stuff. But though people did not think so, the wasps did a great deal of good, and among other things they killed a great many tiresome little flies that were always buzzing and humming about; and the wasps went after them and caught them by the back, and then snipped off their wings and head, and flew off and ate the best parts of them up.