be dead. Without lifting it from the ground he withdrew its head
from under its wing. The bright eye unlidded and gazed at him
sleepily. Then the bird closed its eye with a certain weary
resignation, put its head back under its wing, and relaxed
comfortably in the grass.

Quimbleton was no very acute student of nature, but this seemed
very odd to him. And then, examining the lower limbs of the tree,
he uttered an exclamation. He swung himself up into the oak and
shook one of the branches. Five other birds plopped comfortably
into the grass and rested as easily as the first. He examined them
one by one. They were all sound asleep.

"Most amazing!" he said. "My dear, we will have to take up nature
study. I am really ashamed of my ignorance. I always thought that
owls were the only birds that slept by day."

Theodolinda was looking at the five small bodies. She raised one
of them gently, and sniffed gingerly.

"Virgil," she said solemnly, "this is not mere slumber. These
birds are drunk!"

Quimbleton was about to speak when a grasshopper went by like an
airplane, zooming in a twenty-foot leap. A bee sagged along
heavily in an irregular zig-zag, and a caterpillar, more agile and
purposeful than any caterpillar they had ever seen, staggered
swiftly across a carpet of moss.

The same thought struck them simultaneously, and at that moment