SOUTH AMERICA. 
93 
grown, orange orchard. In the long grass under- second 
neath the tree, apparently a pale green grasshopper -- URNEY ' 
was fluttering, as though it had got entangled 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 
fluttering; and having quietly approached it, in¬ 
tending to make sure of it—behold, the head of a 
large rattlesnake appeared in the grass close by : an 
instantaneous spring backwards prevented fatal con¬ 
sequences. 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 
unwilling, 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 flew away on his retiring; one alone left his 
little life in the air, destined to become a specimen, 
mute and motionless, for the inspection of the curious 
in a far distant clime. 
It was now the rainy season; the birds were Rainy 
moulting; fifty-eight specimens of the handsomest Seasons * 
