regular and monotonous
as the tick-tick of an old-fashioned clock.

Warily and stealthily did the student approach; bent nearly double, he
scarcely drew his breath, as his distance from the tree grew less; but,
says the song of the poacher,--

"If women smell tricks, cuckoos smell powder."

And again,--

"'Tis a difficult thing to catch woman at fault,
More difficult still, an old cuckoo with salt."

Without appearing to do so, from the height of his leafy turret, the
prudent cuckoo kept a wary eye upon the tortuous movements of his enemy;
but as he saw at a glance what sort of a customer he had to deal with,
he evidently did not feel any particular hurry to shift his quarters:
only every time he saw the double barrel moving up to the Parisian's
shoulder, and that hostilities on his part were about to be opened, he,
as if just for fun, dropped his own dear brown self on the branch below
him, flapped his wings, and soon perching himself on a tree a little
further off, gravely re-opened his beak and resumed his monotonous
chant.

The young student, piqued and mortified at this discreet behaviour of
the cuckoo, which, like happiness, was always on the wing, perseveringly
followed the provoking bird--one walked, the other flew, the distance
increased at every flight, and thus they got over a great deal of
ground; the young man still believing his uncle's farm was close behind
him--the cuckoo perfectly easy, knowing full well he could find his
leafy home whenever he might please to return to it. So, for the
fiftieth time, perhaps, the cuckoo was vanishing in the foliage, when a
sudden thought cramped the legs and cut short the obstinate pursuit of
the young lawyer; he then, for the first time, remembered the wholesome
advice his uncle had given him on his arrival.--"Beware, my fine fellow,
beware of going alone in the forest, for to those who know not how to
read their way, that is, on the bark of the trees, the mossy stones, and
dry or broken twigs, the forest is full of snares and danger, of
deceitful echos and strange noises that attract and mislead the
inexperienced sportsman."

"By Juno," thought our hero, "as it is most certain that in Paris they
are not yet clever enough to teach us geography on the bark of trees, I
am an uncommonly lucky fellow to have just remembered the dear old
gentleman's warning. Hang the infernal cuckoo! Go to the devil, you
hideous cuckoo! Good morning, sir, my compliments at ho