STALKING THE WILD GRAPE 



apparently, appeared the mother bird, 

 dancing and mincing along toward me 

 till she was very near, her head up, her 

 eyes blazing with excitement, her wings 

 half spread and her feathers fluttering. 



It was a sort of pyrrhic dance by a 

 creature as different from the usual 

 partridge as may be conceived. It 

 lasted but a moment; at a sudden, in- 

 describable note from the mother bird 

 the fledgling gave an answering jump 

 and slipped from my relaxed hold, flut- 

 tered and dematerialized before my eyes 

 just as the mother bird .went into noth- 

 ingness in the same way. Truly, there 

 are bogies in the wood, for that morn- 

 ing I saw them at their work. It was 

 the illusion and evasion of old Merlin; 

 no less. 



Going on down the pasture, I picked 

 up the musky scent of the swamp I was 

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