The Wit of the Wild 



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two long wing feathers straight up, where they 

 nod and quiver among the heads of the grasses. 



A fish whose name is out of my memory at 

 this moment (but that doesn't matter), has its 

 fins and tail prolonged into queer ragged 

 fringes which would give it a most shredded, 

 disreputable appearance when out of water or 

 swimming in a clear place; but it never does 

 swim naturally in a clear place, but dwells in 

 the midst of floating seaweed, and so disguises 

 itself as a part of the wavering vegetation about 

 it that its enemies must search very carefully to 

 find it. 



It is with the same prudence that the slender 

 and defenseless pipefish pretends to be a tall 

 sea-plant, standing almost continuously on his 

 head among the eel grass, where he becomes 

 simply another blade in the little forest of the 

 seashore. 



The bittern does the same thing when, fearing 

 discovery, he stands with outstretched neck and 

 bill pointing straight toward the sky, as motion- 

 less as a statue as long as you keep quiet. He 

 has taken advantage of his stripes imitating the 



