Featherland. By G. M. Fenn. With illustrations by F. W.
Keyl. (Griffith and Farran.)—The birds at Greenlawn had a fine time of it.
"Not a nest was touched; not a gun was aeon ; the rooks never smelt powder, but built their great awkward nests and punched the lawn about till the grubs used to hold consultations together, and at last determined to emigrate." And in addition to all the creature- comforts provided, there was plenty of intellectual conversation, a fact which Mr. Fenn has proclaimed to the world, he having overheard the birds talking, and taken the valuable notes that are recorded in this volume. We can now learn all about the friendship that exists between Boxer the terrier and Robin of the red waistcoat. Robin, in a pathetic speech, informs Specklems, the starling, and other assembled birds, that ho has been often indebted to his friend Boxer for a sumptuous repast and for a draught of water when all around was ice, and assures them that they may put the greatest trust in his friend's honour. The occasion of the assembly is a thorn in Boxer's nose. Boxer and the birds have a com- mon enemy, Mrs. Puss. She turns his food over in the kitchen until it tastes quite catty, and has often scratched his nose just at the end of his chain, when he is tied up; then with regard to the birds, she has "had her claw down in Mrs. Specklems' nest, with its nasty fish-h3ok end with- in two or three inches of Mrs. Specklems' beak. Boxer has been loose for once and caught Mrs. P. napping ; with much difficulty and loss of hair she has escaped through a gooseberry bush, and left him in the pre- dicament from which the assembly of birds has been convened to relieve him. Induced by the eloquent appeal of him of the red waistcoat, two or three of them "join wings and pull away with a hearty yo-ho, until all at once out comes the thorn and down come the haulers in a heap."
Boxer is delighted, and asks them all to dinner next day, "whilst Mrs. Puss is sitting alone in the coal-cellar, making use of most dreadful cat- language, and determining to serve the birds out some day." There is plenty of this kind of pleasant writing in Featherland, and we think that most children will like to hear how the birds lived at Greenlawn.
Previous page
