114 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



doing, since the vast quantities of wood which she threw 

 out were carried away by floods and the current of die 

 great river. Thus even to the end did her evil spirit 

 sustain her, and the tree bent and swayed in the mighty 

 wind, and at last fell with a noise as of many thunders, 

 shaking the world with its fall, and filling all its in- 

 habitants with terror. Only when they saw the tree 

 which had stood like a vast green pillar reaching to 

 the sky lying prone across the world did they know the 

 dreadful thing which had been done. 



So ended that great tree named Caligdawa; and so 

 ends my story, originally taken down from the lips of 

 wise old men who preserved the history and traditions 

 of their race by a missionary priest and read by me 

 in my early youth in the volume in which he relates it. 



But I will venture to say that the story has not been 

 dragged in here; I had no thought of using it when 

 I sat down this evening to write about a white duck. 

 That vision of the sunlit, surprisingly white, yellow- 

 billed ducks floating on the wind-rippled blue pool — for 

 it was like a vision — had to be told; but how, unless 

 I said that it was like a glimpse into some unearthly 

 place where all things are as on earth, only more beau- 

 tiful in the brighter atmosphere? My blue pool with 

 white birds floating on it, in a spring-green field, blown 

 on by the wind and shone on and glorified by the sun, 

 was like a sudden vision, a transcript of that far-up 

 country. 



And now, just as the finish, another chance thought 

 comes to help me. The thought has, in fact, been stated 



