Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE STORY OF THE LITTLE BIRDS WHO LIVED IN A CAVE A ZULU NURSERY TALE Once upon a time there was a big cave in a hillside, in which lived hundreds of little birds. There were fathers and mothers and lots of little ones. Each had his little kraal with a hut no bigger than your hand, and a fence all round beautifully woven of tiny reeds. One day all the mothers went out to get food, and said to their little ones, " Be very good and quiet, and make the huts clean and tidy while we hoe the lands." Then they went out to see to their tiny fields in which they grew their food—little mealies and tiny sugar-cane, pumpkins no larger than a nut, and nuts no bigger than grass seeds. The little birds were very good; they sweptthe huts out beautifully and tidied them up. Then they cleaned little shells ready to cook the food, and got water in tiny leaves. When all was done they sat down and waited for their parents to arrive. Suddenly a blackbird came to the door of the cave. He had a long sharp beak and very long claws. He put his head in and cried, " Fir-r-r-r ! Fir-r-r-r!" first to one side and then to the other in a high clear voice. All the little birds put their heads out of the tiny huts at once to see who the intruder might be. The big bird then said, " All you little birds must turn out at once. This cave belongs to me." At that the little birds were very angry. The boldest of them flew straight at the blackbird to turn him out, but he was pecked right in the neck. A little stream of blood appeared, as black as charcoal, and the little bird fell dead. Then the big bird attacked many others. He broke the leg of one, he picked out the eyes of another, he broke the wing of a third. "When he had frightened and scattered them all he flew away. That evening th...