"A swarm of his family can make a green land desolate," returned the Lizard. "Small things can do much mischief, as you will learn when you grow older. There is nothing safe from Locusts. They have even been known in the Strait of Ormuz to settle on a ship, and, by devouring the sails and cordage, oblige the captain to stay his course. What? You are still thinking about your Camels? Well, ask for 'Maherry' when you reach the Arabs' dwellings. He is the fleetest Heirie in Arabia."
"Is a 'Heirie' the same as a Camel?" Phil inquired. But the Thorny-tailed Lizard had already tucked her head into her burrow, and soon was lost to sight.
A Weaver Bird fluttered from the palm tree in a state of wild alarm.
"There's a Viper under that stone," she cried, "Do send him off. He makes my heart beat so that I can scarcely hear myself twitter."
Phil turned it over, and a Snake wriggled away as if he had no wish that Phil should see his face. The Weaver Bird thanked Phil with many words.
"He has been watching me all the morning," she said, "with those dreadful eyes of his. I am thankful that he has gone, though my young ones have flown now, and my mind is at peace. Won't you stay and look at my nest? We made it all ourselves, I and my mate, and it is quite worth seeing."
It hung from a fairly high branch, and could only be reached by means of a long narrow entrance, most elaborately woven of grass and twigs, somewhat in the shape of an old-fashioned netted purse. This, she told him, was to keep away poisonous Snakes and mischievous Monkeys, who would otherwise have helped themselves to her eggs, or feasted upon her fledglings.
"We had to keep a sharp look out, their father and I," she added, putting her small black head pensively on one side as she thought of the troubles of married life, "for Birds have many enemies here. Sometimes we hang our nests from the boughs of trees on the bank of a stream or river, but then there are Water Rats as well as Snakes, and it is wonderful how far they can jump."
And on she chattered, giving Phil her history from the day of her birth, and confiding to him how grieved her mate had been in spring because he could not sing.
"But when we began to build our nest," she went on happily, "he was too busy to think about such nonsense, and there is no good in crying for what you cannot have! If you will wait a little while you will see him. Are you going far?—'To find Maherry?' Why, you are almost there. Just go straight on until you come to a house with a white mark over the lintel. He lives in the shed beside it."