20 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



so on till he had gone to the very top of the tree, as if 

 to get as far from the tempting cage as he could ! 



It was a great disappointment, and I now determined 

 to hunt him down; for it was late in the day, and he 

 was not a cunning wild bird to save himself from rats 

 and owls and black and yellow opossums and other 

 subtle enemies who would come presently on the scene. 

 I hunted him from the first tree on to the next, then 

 to another, until I had driven him out of the plantation 

 to an open place where he fluttered over the surface 

 until he came to the bank of the huge ditch or foss, 

 about twelve feet deep and half as wide as the Regent's 

 Park canal. He would drop into it, I thought, and I 

 would then be able to capture him; but after a moment's 

 rest on the bank he rose and succeeded in flying across, 

 pitching on the other side. "Now I have him !" I ex- 

 claimed, and, getting over the foss, I was quickly in 

 hot pursuit after him; for outside the foss the earth 

 spread out level and treeless, with nothing but grass and 

 giant thistles growing on it. But his wings were now 

 getting stronger with exercise, and he led me on and on 

 for about a mile, then disappeared in a clump of giant 

 thistles, growing on a warren or village of the vizcachas 

 — the vizcacha being a big rodent that lives in com- 

 munities in a dozen or twenty huge burrows, their 

 mouths placed close together. He had escaped down one 

 of these holes, and I waited in vain for him to come out, 

 and in the end was compelled to go home without him. 



I don't know if I slept that night, but I was up and 

 out an hour before sunrise, and, taking the cage, set 



