292 GYRANTES. — COLUMBAD^. 



or gully springs, it seems that he cautiously selects 

 his occasion, when unwitnessed by human eyes. 

 And yet it is said not to be a shy bird, nor, at 

 certain times, difficult to obtain by those who have 

 made themselves acquainted wdth its habits. It 

 inhabits the most recluse and dense mountain forests, 

 where few are able to follow it, but the negro 

 fowlers. The penetration of steep mountain-woods, 

 abounding in prickly bushes, and tangled, beyond 

 all description, by twining and pendent lianes, many 

 of which are formidably spinous, w^here there is 

 nothing like a pathway, and the ground is strewn 

 with enormous masses of honey-combed limestone, 

 over w^hose sharp points the hunter must often 

 climb at the risk of his neck, — or with a loose 

 rubble that slips from beneath the feet, and causes 

 continual falls, is an enterprise that demands no 

 small degree of courage, temper, and perseverance. 

 The naked feet of the negroes catch hold of the 

 rocky projections, almost like the hind hands of the 

 monkey, and they can proceed with rapid and 

 noiseless step ; while the shoes of the white man, 

 in his slow and painful progress, betray, by the 

 displacing of stones, and the crackling of twigs, his 

 approach to the wary bird, while yet far away. The 

 musquitoes also, that, thirsting for blood, and 

 swarming in such situations, dance around his face 

 with their maddening hum, and soon inflame head, 

 hand, and foot with their pungent stings, make a 

 tyro long to be out again, almost before he has lost 

 sight of the open sky of the clearing. But it is the 

 presence of these most annoying insects, which 



