BIRDS OF THE ROCKS. 



One day, when I was a little boy, I climbed 

 up the face of a rugged cliff, on a mountain- 

 side in North Georgia, to get some richly- 

 colored lichens growing there. While I was 

 clinging desperately to a weather-soiled pro- 

 jection, I chanced to see, in a small cleft near 

 my fingers, a gaping red-and-yellow mouth. A 

 chill like death swept over me and I came 

 near falling to certain destruction. Of course 

 I was well acquainted with all the snakes of 

 the region ; what mountain-lad was not ? — but 

 my acquaintance did not generate any desire 

 for familiarity with fangs and rattles, or dis- 

 tended heads and forked, darting tongues. A 

 mere glance, as my eye flashed across the 

 dusky little crack or fissure, carried to my 

 brain the impression of a wide-open, repul- 

 sive reptile mouth within three inches of my 

 bare straining fingers ! nor was the glimpse, • 

 though momentary, too slight to fix forever in 

 my memory a certain deadly, swaying motion 

 which always immediately precedes the stroke 

 of a venomous snake. In the course of the 

 merest fraction of a second I recollected a 

 half-dozen instances of death from the fang- 

 wounds of Crotalus or of Toocicophis, and an 

 exhaustive anticipation of the throes of disso- 

 lution I experienced to the full. Yet it was 

 not a snake, after all ! So inexplicable are the 

 tricks of the human brain, so strange are the 

 sudden flashes of what one might almost dare 



