BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 53 



the long wild ringing peal of laughter* Listening to 

 that strange sound, although I could not see I could 

 yet picture him, as, aware of my cautious approach, 

 he moved shyly behind the mossy trunk of some 

 tree and waited silently for me to pass. A lean grey 

 little man, clad in a quaintly barred and mottled 

 mantle, woven by his own hands from some soft 

 silky material, and a close-fitting brown peaked cap 

 on his head with one barred feather in it for ornament, 

 and a small wizened grey face with a thin sharp 

 nose, puckered lips, and a pair of round brilliant 

 startled eyes. 



So distinct was this image to my mind's eye that 

 it became unnecessary for me to see the creature, 

 and I ceased to look for him ; then all at once came 

 disillusion, when one day, hearing the familiar 

 high-pitched laugh with its penetrating and some- 

 what nasal tone, I looked and beheld the thing that 

 had laughed just leaving its perch on a branch near 

 the ground and winging its way across the field. 

 It was only a bird after all only the wryneck; 

 and that mysterious faculty I spoke of, saying that 

 we all of us possessed something of it (meaning only 

 some of us), was nothing after all but the old common 

 faculty of imagination. 



Later on I saw it again on half a dozen occasions, 

 but never succeeded in getting what I call a satisfying 

 sight of it, perched woodpeckerwise on a mossy 



