SOUTH AMERICA. JQI 

 speedy and a final cIokSc : six or seven blackbirds, with Second 



Journey. 



a white spot betwixt the shoulders, were making a noise, 



and passing to and fro on the lower branches of a tree 

 in an abandoned, weed-grown, orange orchard. In the 

 long grass underneath the tree, apparently a pale green 

 grasshopper was fluttering as though it had got en- 

 tangled in it. When you once fancy that the thing you 

 are looking at is really what you take it for, the more 

 you look at it, the more you are convinced it is so. In 

 the present case, this was a grasshopper beyond all 

 doubt, and nothing more remained to be done but to 

 wait in patience till it had settled, in order that you 

 might run no risk of breaking its legs in attempting to 

 lay hold of it while it was fluttering — it still kept flut- 

 tering; and having quietly approached it, intending to 

 make sure of it — behold, the head of a large rattlesnake 

 appeared in the grass close by : an instantaneous spring 

 backwards prevented fatal consequences. What had 

 been taken for a grasshopper was, in fact, the elevated 

 rattle of the snake in the act of announcing that he was 

 quite prepared, though nuAvilling, to make a sure and 

 deadly spring. He shortly after passed slowly from 

 under the orange -tree to the neighbouring wood on the 

 side of a hill : as he moved over a place bare of grass 

 and weeds he appeared to be about eight feet long ; it 

 was he who had engaged the attention of the birds, and 

 made them heedless of danger from another quarter : they 



