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In 1820, a prolific English printer and publisher named James Kendrew, based in the city of York, published a children’s chapbook entitled A Collection of Birds and Riddles and credited it to “Miss Polly and Master Tommy.”
As the book’s title would suggest, it consisted of a curious mixture of illustrated verses and nursery rhymes about birds, set alongside a series of oddly fiendish riddles and poetic puzzles. One of the trickiest of Kendrew’s rhyming riddles is reproduced below. Can you work out what is being described here?
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