42 CAMPS IN THE CARIBBEES. 
I was astonished. “Hear the sunset! No, cer- 
tainly not!” 
* Ah, monsieur, me no mean the great sun, /e grand 
soledl, but the bird called the ‘Sunset-bird,’ ‘Le Sodez/ 
Coucher.’” 
Here was a mystery, an object worthy of investi- 
gation —a bird that acted as the forester’s clock, that . 
told him the time to go to bed. At once I proposed 
to go in search of it; but my guide piteously pro- 
tested, declaring that it was a “ jumbie-bird,” — a bird 
possessed of the devil, — and that to kill it would not 
only endanger my life, but bring death to the settle- 
ment. Half an hour before sunset it utters its pecu- 
liar cry, and half an hour before sunrise; during the 
day it is silent. 
“Listen!” said my guide. In a few minutes there 
rang through the forest a cry weird and mournful, yet 
having in its notes a resemblance to the words soled? 
coucher—the equivalent in patois for sunset. It was 
repeated by another bird and another, all around the 
lake, one answering another. In less than half an hour 
darkness had covered us, and the cries had ceased. 
Grand old trees towered above me, their branches 
matted together and hung with cable-like vines. In 
the morning, I listened eagerly for a repetition of the 
sounds of the night before, and was out and away 
down to the lake-border with my gun, before my 
guide was awake, or daylight had made it safe to 
walk abroad. I was rewarded —“solecl coucher!” 
right over my head. Eagerly I gazed, but saw noth- 
ing. The sound was repeated, and by other birds. 
In the darkness it was impossible to distinguish any- 
thing, though never so near. 
