Seen and Lost. 365 
from the thick foliage and perched within two or 
three yards of me, not afraid, but only curious; and 
after peering at me first with one eye and then the 
other, and wiping its small dagger on a twig, it 
flew away and was seen no more. For many days 
I sought for it, and for years waited its reappearance, 
and it was more to me than ninety and nine birds 
which I had always known; yet it was very modest, 
dressed in a brown suit, very pale on the breast and 
white on the throat, and for distinction a straw- 
coloured stripe over the eye—that ribbon which 
Queen Nature bestows on so many of her feathered 
subjects, in recognition, I suppose, of some small 
and common kind of merit. If I should meet with 
it in a collection J should know it again; only, in 
that case it would look plain and homely to me— 
this little bird that for a time made all others seem 
unbeautiful. 
Even a richer prize may come in sight for a brief 
period—one of the nobler mammalians, which are 
fewer in number, and bound to earth Jike ourselves, 
and therefore so much better known than the wan- 
dering children of air. In some secluded spot, 
resting amidst luxuriant herbage or forest under- 
growth, a slight rustling makes us start, and, lo! 
looking at us from the clustering leaves, a strange 
face ; the leaf-like ears erect, the dark eyes round 
with astonishment, and the sharp black nose 
twitching and sniffing audibly, to take in the 
unfamiliar flavour of a human presence from the 
air, like the pursed-up and smacking lips of a wine- 
drinker tasting a new vintage. No sooner seen 
than gone, like a dream, a phantom, the quaint 
