:::::::::=>v THE MAGIC POOLS m:::::::: 



more than likely that the next day a coughing, unsav- 

 oury vultuie had devoured the bait and was waiting 

 patiently to be set free. 



One day at the edge of the stream, I undertook to 

 prepare an armadillo for the pot. His tough skin 

 made it a rather difficult and engfrossing- task and for 

 some twenty minutes I did not look up from my work. 

 While on my way to the water I had thoughtlessly 

 noticed a single black speck high up overhead, so usual 

 a sight that I hardly remembered it. When at last 

 I rose from my comjaleted work and painfully stretched 

 my cramped limbs, every dead tree and consjjicuous 

 boulder within a large area held its complement of 

 vultures — Black and Turkey. It was most uncanny. 

 Their skinny necks stretched out toward me ; nearly 

 a hundred red and ebony heads peered through leaves 

 and over rocks and dead limbs, forming a ring of 

 watchful ghouls. Overhead the sky was quartered in 

 every direction by scores of others. Within a few 

 minutes all these birds had come, each guided by the 

 suggestive descent of some brother vulture, who in 

 turn had well interpreted Ills neighbour's actions. All 

 were waiting jjatiently for the exjjected feast. And 

 ivhat a feast ! It was the " loaves and fishes " over 

 again without any chance for a miracle. Nearly two 

 hundred birds — all told — as large as turkeys were 

 eagerly waiting for the moment when I should leave to 

 them the remaius of one small armadillo ! 



«4 213 ^ 



