of t 



not a difficult act, for the opening measured four feet 

 and a half at the mouth. The air was musty inside, 

 yet surprisingly free from odor. The floor was abso- 

 lutely clean, but on the top and sides of the cavity 

 was a thick coating of live mosquitoes, most of them 

 gorged, hanging like a red-beaded tapestry over the 

 walls. 



I had taken pains that the flying buzzard should 

 not see me enter, for I hoped she would descend to 

 look after her young. But she would take no chances 

 with herself. I sat near the mouth of the hollow, 

 where I could catch the fresh breeze that pulled 

 at the end, and where I had a view of a far-away 

 bit of sky. Suddenly across this field of blue, as you 

 have seen an infusorian scud across the field of 

 your microscope, there swept a meteor of black, 

 the buzzard ! and evidently in that instant of passage, 

 at a distance certainly of half a mile, she spied me 

 in the log. 



I waited more than an hour longer, and when I 

 tumbled out with a dozen kinds of cramps, the ma- 

 ternal creature was soaring serenely far up in the 

 clear, cool sky. 



