BIRDS OF THE ROCKS. 
OneE day, when I was a little boy, I climbed 
up the face of a rugged cliff, on a mountain- 
side in North Georgia, to get some richly- 
colored lichens growing there. While I was 
clinging desperately to a weather-soiled pro- 
jection, I chanced to see, in a small cleft near 
my fingers, a gaping red-and-yellow mouth. A 
chill like death swept over me and I came 
near falling to certain destruction. Of course 
I was well acquainted with all the snakes of 
the region; what mountain-lad was not ?—but 
my acquaintance did not generate any desire 
for familiarity with fangs and rattles, or dis- 
tended heads and forked, darting tongues. A 
mere glance, as my eye flashed across the 
dusky little crack or fissure, carried to my 
brain the impression of a wide-open, repul- 
sive reptile mouth within three inches of my 
bare straining fingers! nor was the glimpse, 
though momentary, too slight to fix forever in 
my memory a certain deadly, swaying motion 
which always immediately precedes the stroke 
of a venomous snake. In the course of the 
merest fraction of a second I recollected a 
half-dozen instances of death from the fang- 
wounds of Crotalus or of Zoxicophis, and an 
exhaustive anticipation of the throes of disso- 
lution I experienced to the full. Yet it was 
not a snake, after all! So inexplicable are the 
tricks of the human brain, so strange are the 
sudden flashes of what one might almost dare 
