Solomon did none of these things. He shut his beak tightly when I wished to feed him, he pecked at me when I tried to open it, he ran away when I attempted to catch him, he struggled when I had got him, he hurled himself from my hand into the crate as soon as possible, and he did not like me at all.
By the third day Solomon had immensely developed. People who had considerately told me that it was impossible to rear a hoopoe, now foretold that he would live. He extended his mining operations to the garden. I am not sure that he found any insects, but he did great execution on the loose earth at the foot of the palm-tree. He looked quite like a real grown-up hoopoe when he ran about the garden bed and dug his bill in up to its roots; and in the evening he flopped off the window-sill while I was feeding him, and had a grand race round the room.
That night I dismissed the fear of finding the little cold corpse in the morning.
But when I opened the shutters and looked at Solomon in the morning, he was not awake; his head was tucked behind his wing. I took him out, he looked round dreamily, and sank on to the ground. I got whisky and water again, and fed him with a feather; he pecked and struggled at first, but presently he allowed me to open his beak, and I saw that the little pink mouth was getting very white. Still I gave him more, hoping it would have the same reviving effect as at first. But presently Solomon dropped his beak on the window-sill, and the drop trickled down it again, for he had stopped swallowing. He laid his head down, and stretched out his little black claws; and heaved gently once or twice; and no more.
As the Arabs say, it was “Finished Solomon.”
MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH
Transcriber’s Note:
Attempts have been made to produce this eBook as a faithful reproduction of the original publication, preserving spellings including “[anyrate]”, “[developes]” and “[skwug]”; and the alternative spelling of “[laurustinus]” and “[laurestinus]”.