How Animals Talk 



the resonant shell, listening to the talk of unseen 

 creatures which I fancied were young 'coons, a 

 big log-cock flashed into the old tree, drew himself 

 up on a stub over my head, and seemed to cock 

 his ear at the voices to which I had been listening. 

 Now the log-cock is naturally a wary bird, shy 

 and difficult of approach; but this gorgeous fellow 

 with the scarlet crest became almost sociable in 

 his curiosity, perhaps because the place was so 

 quiet, so friendly, with no motion or hint of danger 

 to disturb its tranquillity. He saw me at once, 

 as the change in his bright eye plainly said; but, 

 deceived by my stillness or the sober coloring of my 

 clothes, he set me down as a tree-fungus or mush- 

 room that had grown since his last visit, and 

 looked about for something more interesting. 

 When I called his attention by a curt nod, telling 

 him that this was no dull mushroom, he came down 

 at once to light against the side of the tree, where 

 he examined my head minutely. Learning noth- 

 ing from my wink, he went around the tree in a 

 series of side-jumps to have a look from the other 

 side; then he hopped up and down, this side or 

 that, all the while uttering a low surprised chatter. 

 Even when I began to flip bits of wood at him 

 (for he soon grew impatient, and interrupted the 

 'coon talk by an unseemly rapping), instead of 

 rushing off in alarm, he twice followed a missile 



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