A turtle-dove takes peas, and a hedge-sparrow picks ants' eggs from his lips; a white-throat perches on his left hand to snatch a caterpillar from his right.

The huge man was in his garden soon after sunrise gathering the dewy leaves for his feathered pets.

But he talks and plays longest with the starling which his lost wife gave him.

She had bought it in secret from the Bedouin who for many years had brought shells for sale from the Red Sea, to surprise her husband with the gift.

The clever bird had first learned to call her name, Olympias; and then, without any teaching, had picked up his master's favorite lament, "My strength, my strength!" Heron regarded this bird as a friend who understood him, and, like him, remembered the never-to-be-forsaken dead.