IDLE DAYS 129 



It is near sunset, and, hark! as I ramble on I 

 hear in the low scrub before me the crested tina- 

 mous (Calodromas elegans), the wild fowl of this 

 region, and in size like the English pheasant, just 

 beginning their evening call. It is a long, sweetly 

 modulated note, somewhat flute-like, and sounding 

 clear and far in the quiet evening air. The covey 

 is a large one, I conjecture, for many voices are 

 joined in the concert. I mark the spot and walk 

 on; but at my approach, however quiet and 

 masked with bushes it may be, one by one the shy 

 vocalists drop their parts. The last to cease re- 

 peats his note half a dozen times, then the con- 

 tagion reaches him and he too becomes silent. I 

 whistle and he answers; for a few minutes we 

 keep up the duet, then, aware of the deception, he 

 is silent again. I resume my walk and pass and 

 repass fifty times through the scattered scrub, 

 knowing all the time that I am walking about 

 amongst the birds, as they sit turning their fur- 

 tive eyes to watch my movements, yet concealed 

 from me by that wonderful adaptive resemblance 

 in the color of their plumage to the sear grass 

 and foliage around them, and by that correlated 

 instinct which bids them sit still in their places. 

 I find many evidences of their presence prettily 

 mottled feathers dropped when they preened their 

 wings, also a dozen or twenty neat circular hol- 

 lows scooped in the sand in which they recently 

 dusted themselves. There are also little chains of 

 footprints running from one hollow to the other; 



