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In 1820, a Yorkshire printer named James Kendrew produced a children’s illustrated chapbook (a small pamphlet-like publication) containing several short poems about different types of birds and a series of riddles. Credited to two characters, Miss Molly and Master Tommy (whose names had by then been long associated with children’s literature) Kendrew’s book was rather appropriately entitled A Collection of Birds and Riddles.
The riddle below is one of the shortest from this collection, yet—despite its audience of young children—is deceptively tricky. Can you work out what object Molly and Tommy are describing here?
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