SHE FLUNG HERSELF DOWN. 87 



could not get far enough away for a more level 

 view. 



Sometimes the bustling little wren flew to the 

 top of the wall, about twenty feet above her 

 front door, as it looked to me (it may have been 

 ten times that). Over the edge she instantly 

 disappeared, but in a few minutes returned to 

 her occupation on the rock. Upon the earth 

 beneath her sky parlor she seemed never to turn 

 her eyes, and I began to fear that I should get 

 no nearer view of the shy cliff-dweller. 



Finally, however, the caprice seized the tan- 

 talizing creature of descending to the level of 

 mortals, and the brook. Suddenly, while I 

 looked, she flung herself off her perch, and fell 

 down down down disappearing at last 

 behind a clump of weeds at the bottom. Was 

 she killed ? Had she been shot by some noiseless 

 air-gun ? What had become of the tiny wren ? 

 I sprang to my feet, and hurried as near as the 

 intervening stream would allow, when lo ! there 

 she was, lively and fussy as ever, running about 

 at the foot of the cliff, searching, searching all 

 the time, ever and anon jumping up and pulling 

 from the rock something that clung to it. 



When the industrious bird had filled her beak 

 with material that stuck out on both sides, which 

 I concluded to be some kind of rock moss, she 

 started back. Not up the face of that blank 



