the next tree, and again came fluttering about his head, with
its doleful chirp, as soon as he showed a purpose of going
forward.

"Have you anything to tell me, little bird?" asked Ulysses.

And he was ready to listen attentively to whatever the bird
might communicate; for, at the siege of Troy, and elsewhere, he
had known such odd things to happen, that he would not have
considered it much out of the common run had this little
feathered creature talked as plainly as himself.

"Peep!" said the bird, "peep, peep, pe--weep!" And nothing else
would it say, but only, "Peep, peep, pe--weep!" in a melancholy
cadence, and over and over and over again. As often as Ulysses
moved forward, however, the bird showed the greatest alarm, and
did its best to drive him back, with the anxious flutter of its
purple wings. Its unaccountable behavior made him conclude, at
last, that the bird knew of some danger that awaited him, and
which must needs be very terrible, beyond all question, since
it moved even a little fowl to feel compassion for a human
being. So he resolved, for the present, to return to the
vessel, and tell his companions what he had seen.

This appeared to satisfy the bird. As soon as Ulysses turned
back, it ran up the trunk of a tree, and began to pick insects
out of the bark with its long, sharp bill; for it was a kind of
woodpecker, you must know, and had to get its living in the
same manner as other birds of that species. But every little
while, as it pecked at the bark of the tree, the purple bird