Nat. "What would you call it, Olive?"

"I should call it rather a small bird, if I were not speaking exactly.
But if you wish to be more particular you must try to guess its length
in inches. When I was about your age father measured my right-hand
middle finger and told me it was three inches long. Then he made two
marks across it with violet ink, which takes a long time to wash off, so
that my finger made a three-inch measure. I soon grew accustomed to look
at a bird and then at my finger, from nail to knuckle, and then try to
tell how many times longer the bird was from the point of his beak down
over his back to the tip of his tail. Of course I made a great many
mistakes and could seldom tell exactly, but it was a great help."

"How long is my finger?" asked Nat eagerly, spreading out a rather large
hand for a boy of ten.

"About four inches."

"Then that bird is quite a little longer than that--five or six inches
anyway." And he wrote, "Length, five or six inches."

"Ah, he has gone," wailed Dodo. "Oh, no, he hasn't. He has come round
the tree again--he says _squank, squank, squank_, as if his voice was
rusty. Is that his song, Cousin Olive?"

"No, he is only talking now."

"Talking? It seems to me that birds can do ever so many more things than
I thought they possibly could."