::::::;::*?: TWO BIRD-LOVERS IN MEXICO M-^^ 



tube, within which is the slender white style. Only for 

 a single night do these beautiful flowers open, and 

 what is a tightly closed bud at dusk may be a full- 

 blown blossom an hour later. By watching carefully, 

 we plainly detect the motion of the expanding petals. 



The delicious perfume from a cereus flower can be 

 detected many yards away, even by our dull senses, 

 and it must, indeed, be a potent summons to the keen- 

 sensed hawk-moths and other insects upon which this 

 flower depends for fertilization during its brief season 

 of perfection. 



Strange sounds come to us upon our moonlight 

 walk ; mice scurry from our path, a flying-squirrel, or 

 some small furry creature of great leaping power, 

 passes through the air. Throughout a quarter of a mile 

 of our course a sound reaches us, almost continuous in 

 its mysterious rhythm ; a noise as of a mallet striking 

 on wood — tlmmp-thwnp ! tkiimp-thump ! Whether 

 from bird or beast, it will ever be to us an unsolved 

 voice of the night. 



As the hours pass, the tension of the silence and 

 the dimness becomes greater ; every sense is quickened 

 and alert, not a rustle of the dry underbrush or a swish 

 of wings overhead escapes us. Some creature coughs — 

 a sudden painful choking sound, and we start, as if it 

 were a gun-shot. The feeling that a myriad of watch- 

 ful eyes are upon us is irresistible. They seem to peer 

 out from each hole and cavern — eyes more keen than 



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