him, and if he had taken his cap off they could not have done so because
the yellow curls would be so much the same colour as the yellow corn. He
stooped to see how nicely he could hide himself, then he knelt, and in a
minute sat down, so that the wheat rose up high above him.

Another humble-bee went over along the tips of the wheat--burr-rr--as he
passed; then a scarlet fly, and next a bright yellow wasp who was telling
a friend flying behind him that he knew where there was such a capital
piece of wood to bite up into tiny pieces and make into paper for the
nest in the thatch, but his friend wanted to go to the house because
there was a pear quite ripe there on the wall. Next came a moth, and
after the moth a golden fly, and three gnats, and a mouse ran along the
dry ground with a curious sniffling rustle close to Guido. A shrill cry
came down out of the air, and looking up he saw two swifts turning
circles, and as they passed each other they shrieked--their voices were
so shrill they shrieked. They were only saying that in a month their
little swifts in the slates would be able to fly. While he sat so quiet
on the ground and hidden by the wheat, he heard a cuckoo such a long way
off it sounded like a watch when it is covered up. "Cuckoo" did not come
full and distinct--it was such a tiny little "cuckoo" caught in the
hollow of Guido's ear. The cuckoo must have been a mile away.

Suddenly he thought something went over, and yet he did not see
it--perhaps it was the shadow--and he looked up and saw a large bird not
very far up, not farther than he could fling, or shoot his arrows, and
the bird was fluttering his wings, but did not move away farther, as if
he had been tied in the air. Guido knew it was a hawk, and the hawk was
staying there to see if there was a mouse or a little bird in the wheat.
After a minute the hawk stopped fluttering and lifted his wings together
as a butterfly does when he shuts his, and down the hawk came, straight