Part 32 (2/2)

'Feed the birds, Archie'

'Ah, ah, ah! Yah, ah! Yah, yah!'

'The birds need not coh and to spare for them in the woods, but they think whatever we eat must be extra nice We have all kinds of birds except the British sparrow I really hope you have not brought hilishmen to the uttermost parts of the world'

We waited for a ed doves and pigeons and other birds that had alighted round the table to receive their daily dole, then followed our heruide, to feast our eyes on other wonders not a whit less wonderful than all we had seen

CHAPTER XXI

WILD ADVENTURES ON PRAIRIE AND PAMPAS

If I were to describe even one half of the strange creaturesin the herlen, the reader would be tired before I had finished, and even then I should not have succeeded in conveying anything like a correct ierie

It puzzled me to know, and it puzzles ether in one place

'I brought many of them here,' the hermit told us, 'but the others came, lured, no doubt, by the water, the trees, and the flowers'

'But was the water here when you arrived?'

'Oh yes, else I would not have settled down here The glen was a sort of oasis even then, and there were more bushes and trees than ever I had seen before in one place The ducks and geese and swans, in fact, all the web-footed fraternity, had been here before me, and many birds and beasts besides--the biscachas, the arreat ant-eater, and the skunk--I have banished that, however--wolves, foxes, kites, owls, and condors I also found peccaries, and soive s, puuars Insects are rather too numerous, and I have several species of snakes'

Archie's--_our_ Archie's--face fell

'Are they?' he began, 'are they very--'

'Very beautiful? Yes; indeed, sohtest cri to their beauty; I ive them a chance to bite me, and I do not think they want to; but all snakes are to be avoided and left severely alone'

'Or killed, sir?'

'Yes, perhaps, if killed outright; for the pampan Indians have an idea that if a rattlesnake be only wounded, he will coe the subject You see those splendid butterflies? Well, by and by the moths will be out; they are equally lovely, but when I first came here there were very few of either They followed the flowers, and the huay-coloured little songsters I introduced most of the parrots and toucans There are two up there even now They would come down if you were not here'

'They are very funny-looking, but very pretty,' said Dugald 'I could stop and look at them for hours'

'But we must proceed Here are the trees where the parrots '

What a sight! What resplendency of colour and beauty! Such bright e, crimson and bronze!