Who were its enemies? Two glorious mocking birds that had sung like spirits from an heavenly choir around the house all spring and summer, that had been permitted to live and rear their young in contentment and happiness and should have held no grudge against any other creature. Golden-Wings was in the garden, and he was content until that which sustained life gave out—food. Ay, there is the rub! We would all be angels if it were not for food, we would be saints but for our stomachs. He had sucked every flower in his pasture, he must go to pastures fresh or die. The distance was only a few hundred yards of air, but he knew that in that air was death. He thought of it a long time as he hovered from flower to flower; of life, of his mate, of death. Had he been all spirit he would have stayed forever among the flowers, but he was like all of us, half spirit and half flesh, and the flesh of him was rebelling and begging for food. He must go. He rose slowly, and with uncertain wing, frightened, straight up, every sense awake, every nerve keyed, his eyes on the lookout for his enemy. Up, up he rose, quivering, scared, frightened, then he winged his way across the ether in a flight which proved to be for his life. The mocking bird is a flycatcher, but not an expert one. Compared with the swallow, the martin, the crested flycatcher or the bold king bird he is a poor imitation; but the mocking bird is also a poet and everything is grist that comes to the poet’s mill, from the grasshopper on the ground to the butterfly in the air. The male bird saw Golden-Wings and gave him the first heat for his life; up in the air he darted, circled and swooped. Golden-Wings, terrified, ducked, dived and escaped. The poet dropped to a twig in disgust and his mate took up the fight. Golden-Wings saw her coming and his heart swelled with fear; he stood quivering in the air, he knew not which way to turn. She darted straight and all but caught him; for a moment in mid-air they whirled, twisted and tumbled, Golden-Wings, panting and fluttering for a chance once more for home and love and life, and the poetess for a morsel to eat. It ended in the butterfly getting above the bird, which always seemed to be his tactics, and the latter dropped down in disgust to her mate. Then, maddened, they both started after Golden-Wings, and it looked as if this flight was to be his last. It was a terrible chase that the two poets gave him, the tumbling, darting, circling of the birds in maddened earnestness. Their wings were often so close that they fanned him about like a whiff of gold tissue paper in the wind. Twice they got above him, dropped and missed! Then he was lost altogether, and only by watching the circling of the birds could one guess where he was. When seen again he had got above his enemies, and was steadily pursuing his zigzag, frightened, graceless, paper-fluttering flight for the distant trees and life!