354 STRANGE DWELLINGS- 



when ' chance favoured me somewhat strangely about this time. 

 I had been out squirrel-shooting early one sweltering hot 

 morning, and on my return had thrown myself beneath the 

 shade of a thick hickory, near the bank of a creek. I lay on 

 my back, looking listlessly out over the stream, when the chirp 

 of the Humming Bird and its darting form reached my senses 

 at the same instant I was sure I saw it light upon the limb of 

 a small iron-wood tree, that happened to be exactly in the line 

 of my vision at that instant. 



' In about five minutes another chirp and another bird darting 

 in. I saw this one drop upon what seemed to be a knob or an 

 angle of the limb. I heard the soft chirping of greeting and 

 love. I could scarcely contain myself for joy. I would have 

 given anything in the world to have dared to scream, " I've 

 got you, I've got you at last ! " By a great struggle I choked 

 down my ecstasy and kept still. One of them now flew away, 

 and after waiting fifteen minutes, that seemed a week, I rose, 

 and with my eyes steadily fixed on that important limb, I 

 walked slowly down the bank, without, of course, seeing where 

 I placed my feet. 



* But the highest hopes are sometimes doomed to a fall, and 

 a fall mine took with a vengeance ! I caught my foot in a root, 

 and tumbled head foremost down the bank into the river ! I 

 suppose that such a ducking would have cooled the enthusiasm 

 of most bird-nesters, but it only exasperated mine. I shook 

 off the water, and vowed that I would find that nest if it took 

 me a week. But how to begin was the question, for I had lost 

 the limb, and how was I to find it among a hundred others 

 just like it? 



' The knot that I had seen was so exactly like other knots 

 upon other limbs all round it, that the prospect of finding it 

 seemed a hopeless one ; but, " I'll try, sir," is my favourite 

 motto. I laid myself down as nearly as possible in the position 

 which I had originally occupied, but, after some twenty minutes' 

 experiment, came to the conclusion that my head had been too 

 much confused by the shock of my fall and ducking for me to 

 hope to make much out of this method. Then I went under 



I 



