Seen and Lost. 373 



slope, we began our laborious ascent. Now the 

 gaucho when taken from his horse, on which he 

 lives like a kind of parasite, is a very slow-moving 

 creature, and I soon left my friends far behind. 

 Coming to a place where ferns and flowering herbage 

 grew thick, I began to hear all about me sounds of 

 a character utterly unlike any natural sound I was 

 acquainted with — innumerable low clear voices 

 tinkling or pealing like minute sweet-toned, resonant 

 bells — for the sounds were purely metallic and per- 

 fectly bell-like. I was completely ringed round 

 with the mysterious music, and as I walked it rose 

 and sank rhythmically, keeping time to my steps. 

 I stood still, and immediately the sounds ceased. 

 I took a step forwards, and again the fairy-bells 

 were set ringing, as if at each step my foot touched 

 a central meeting point of a thousand radiating 

 threads, each thread attached to a peal of little bells 

 hanging concealed among the herbage. I waited 

 for my companions, and called their attention to 

 the phenomenon, and to them also it was a thing 

 strange and perplexing. " It is the bell-snake ! " 

 cried one excitedly. This is the rattle-snake ; but 

 although at that time I had no experience of this 

 reptile, I knew that he was wrong. Yet how 

 natural the mistake ! The Spanish name of " bell- 

 snake " had made him imagine that the whirring 

 sound of the vibrating rattles, resembling muffled 

 cicada music, is really bell-like in character. Even- 

 tually we discovered that the sound Avas made by 

 grasshoppers ; but they were seen only to be lost, 

 for T could not capture one, so excessively shy and 

 cunning had the perpetual ringing of their own 



