ORCHID-HUNTING 143 
like the newspaper in the old conundrum, stopped 
calling his name from the thickets and singing, “Drink 
your tea!”’ 
I knew that at last I had come upon a fairy hill, 
such an one wherein the shepherd heard a host of 
tiny voices singing a melody so haunting sweet that 
he always after remembered it, and which has since 
come down to us of to-day as the tune of Robin 
Adair. Listen as I would, however, there was no 
sound from the depths of this hill. Perhaps the sun 
was too high, for the fairy-folk sing best in late 
twilight or early dawn. 
The mound, like all fairy hills, was guarded. The 
path ran into a tangle of sand-myrtle, with vivid little 
oval green leaves and feathery white, pink-centred 
blossoms. Just beyond stood a bush of poison-sumac. 
Pushing aside the fierce branches, I went unscathed 
up the mound. At its very edge was another sentry. 
From under my feet sounded a deep, fierce hiss, and 
there across the path stretched the great body of a 
pine snake fully six feet long, all cream-white and 
umber-brown. Raising its strange pointed head, 
with its gold and black eyes, it hissed fearsomely. 
I had learned, however, that a pine snake’s hiss is 
worse than its bite and, when I poked its rough, 
mottled body with my foot, it gave up pretending to 
be a dangerous snake and lazily moved off to some 
spot where it would not be disturbed by intruding 
humans. 
The pyxies had carpeted the side of the mound 
thick with their wine-red and green moss, starred with 
