He said it was nothing remarkable;
birds frequently lost their tails. He explained how a bird in close
quarters has power to relax its muscles, and let its tail go in
order to save its body, when under the paw of a cat, or caught in a
trap.
That was satisfactory, but I thought it must have been a spry cat
to get even a paw on the Lady Bird, for frequently humming-birds
could be seen perching, but never one of these. I watched the tail
question sharply, and soon learned the cats had been after every
Lady Bird that visited our garden, or any of our neighbours, for not
one of them had a tail. When this information was carried my father,
he became serious, but finally he said perhaps the tail was very short;
those of humming-birds or wrens were, and apparently some water birds
had no tail, or at least a very short one.
That seemed plausible, but still I watched this small and most
interesting bird of all; this bird that no one ever had seen taking
a bath, or perching, and whose nest never had been found by a person
so familiar with all outdoors as my father.
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