106 BRITISH BIRDS. 



captain found him at the edge of a swamp, among a 

 clump of white cedar-trees, to one of which he had 

 evidently tracked some kind of bird, for he was looking 

 stedfastly into the tree, and barking with the utmost 

 eagerness. 



The captain looked attentively, but nothing whatever 

 could he discover. He w^alked round and round the 

 tree, then observed the dog, whose eyes were evidently 

 directly fixed upon the object itself, and still was he dis- 

 appointed in perceiving nothing. In the mean time the 

 dog, working himself up to a pitch of impatience and 

 violence, tore with his paws the trunk of the tree, and 

 bit the rotten sticks and bark, jumping and springing up 

 at intervals towards the game ; and five minutes had at 

 least elapsed in this manner, when all at once the cap- 

 tain saw the eye of the bird. There it sat, or rather 

 stood, just where Rover pointed, in an attitude so per- 

 fectly still and fixed, w^ith an outstretched neck, and a 

 body drawn out to such an unnatural length, that twenty 

 times must he have overlooked it, mistaking it for a 

 dead branch, which it most closely resembled. 



It was about twenty feet from the ground, on a bough, 

 and sat eight or ten feet from the body of the tree. The 

 captain shot it, and, in the course of the morning, killed 

 four more, which he came upon much in the same way 



