RETURN TO TIP US. 323 



posture necessitated by this discovery is decidedly 

 a change for the worse, and stronger and stronger 

 grows the conviction in my mind that a fair set-to 

 with Mr. Stripes for a quarter of an hour by broad 

 daylight would be far better than this silent night- 

 watch on a painfully acute tree-stump. 



Gradually the inmates of the woods seem to 

 regain confidence. That sharp querulous bark 

 came from a jackal, who is ' loafing around ' as the 

 Yankees say, just within the shadow of the 

 thicket opposite us. Then there is a whish, whish 

 of whirling wings, and we hear phantom flights of 

 duck come sweeping over the tree-tops close to us, 

 but invisible to our eyes in spite of the bright 

 moonlight. The silence is one moment intense ; 

 then, before you have time to blink, the rush 

 of wings is upon you and past- you, and the birds 

 are rattling and plopping down into the dark little 

 forest pools, in the soft mossy places, or, best of all, 

 amongst the young wheat of the luckless Persian. 

 What a merry chuckling they make as every fresh 

 flight comes in from its day-dreams and play on 

 the sea. Each batch of new comers takes at least 

 ten minutes to publish its budget of news and 

 arrange for its places at supper. 



Again a sudden silence falls on them. Too- 

 whoo-op! too-whoo-op ! Ah! you may well crouch 

 trembling under covert now. But as soon as the 

 shadow of the great night-fiend has passed on, the 



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