“Dot,” said Pipi, “do you see that creature with his nest on his back? Shall I tell you why he must always carry it? When he was a nestling, he wouldn’t come out of his nest like the others; so at last the nest stuck to him, and he carries it to this day, and always will. So take care the same thing doesn’t happen to you, Dot--I rather think I see your back beginning to stick to that bit of moss; and if you don’t make haste--” But before he could finish the sentence, the horror-stricken Dot was out of the nest; and in another minute she was on a twig beside him. Recollections like these passed through poor Flip’s clouded mind, as he lurked in the stems of the alder-root. But after a while, as the wind went down, he bestirred himself, and flying up to the top of the alder, began to look about him. There was the sea, and there the little gap, with the stream, where he had landed: and there, right above it, on a headland, was the lighthouse. It would not take long to get there, and he felt that he must go and find out if anything was to be seen of poor Pipi. A flight would do him good, and there were plenty of hedges to rest on. So after a number of quick low flights from hedge to hedge and tree to tree, he came to the front of the lighthouse, and sank rather tired into the long grass where Twinkle had landed in the night. Peeping out after a while, he flew about a little, searching for poor Pipi’s body: but nothing was to be seen of it. Then, taking courage, he flew up on to the platform in front of the light, on which Twinkle had described Pipi’s falling, but neither here was there a trace to be seen of Pipi. Just as he was going to fly off he heard a voice inside the lantern-room, and listened, for birds can understand all languages. “Well, Peter,” said the voice, “what did you get in last night’s gale? The warblers ought to be coming now; we have had the chiffchaffs and the wheatears, and a few redstarts; who are the next earliest this year?” Flip peeped in at a corner of the window; it was dangerous, but he might see or hear something of Pipi. The man who had spoken was a tall, hale, and hearty looking old gentleman, with a face glowing with its own good-nature as well as with the blustering of the gale. He was answered by the lighthouse-man, who wore an oilskin hat, and was short and weather-beaten. “Good afternoon, Professor,” he said, as he put his hand into a deep pocket of his overcoat, “I’ve a thing or two for you this time; sure to get something in a gale like that, though for the matter of that a calm night suits ’em better. We’ll have more to-night again, I’ll answer for it. Here they be: some of ’em knocked agen the window and fell on the platform (Flip felt his ears tingling and his brain swimming); some on ‘em were blowed right away and we couldn’t find ’em. Wrens we calls ’em here, though they ben’t just like our jenny wrens, all the same,” said he, as he pulled out a number of little birds and laid them on the table.