Seen and Lost. 365 



from the thick foliage and perched within two or 

 three yards of me, not afraid, but only curious ; and 

 after peering at me first with one eye and then the 

 other, and wiping its small dagger on a twig, it 

 flew away and was seen no more. For many days 

 I sought for it, and for years waited its reappearance, 

 and it was more to me than ninety and nine birds 

 which I had always known ; yet it was very modest, 

 dressed in a brown suit, very pale on the breast and 

 white on the throat, and for distinction a straw- 

 coloured stripe over the eye that ribbon which 

 Queen Nature bestows on so many of her feathered 

 subjects, in recognition, I suppose, of some small 

 and common kind of merit. If I should meet with 

 it in a collection I should know it again ; only, in 

 that case it would look plain and homely to me 

 this little bird that for a time made all others seem 

 unbeautiful. 



Even a richer prize may come in sight for a brief 

 period one of the nobler mammalians, which are 

 fewer in number, and bound to earth like ourselves, 

 and therefore so much better known than the wan- 

 dering children of air. In some secluded spot, 

 resting amidst luxuriant herbage or forest under- 

 growth, a slight rustling makes us start, and, lo 1 

 looking at us from the clustering leaves, a strange 

 face ; the leaf -like ears erect, the dark eyes round 

 with astonishment, and the sharp black nose 

 twitching and sniffing audibly, to take in the 

 unfamiliar flavour of a human presence from the 

 air, like the pursed-up and smacking lips of a wine- 

 drinker tasting a new vintage. No sooner seen 

 than gone, like a dream, a phantom, the quaint 



