eneath the
oaks with their flowing drapery of moss, now peering up to see if
anything alive was moving among the branches, now noticing how far up
the flood had risen, as shown by the mark of dried mud and the patches
of withered reed, which still clung here and there.

But there was no sign of living thing, and I walked on for a time in and
out among the great trunks in the deep shade towards where there was a
broad patch of sunshine, and all therein looked to be of green and gold.
It was the clearing where the trees had been cut down for building and
fencing when we first came.

I was not long in placing myself upon a stump out here in the broad
sunshine, to watch what was going on, for this was a favourite old place
of mine, where I generally found something to interest me.

So it was on this day, for a great crane flew up and went off with a
great deal of wing-flapping before it was clear of the trees; and as I
was eagerly watching the spot where it had disappeared, there was one
bright flash, and one only, as a humming-bird darted across the sunny
clearing, to poise itself first here and then there, before the open
flowers of the great creepers, its wings vibrating so rapidly that they
were invisible, and the lovely little creature looked more like some
great moth than a bird.

I knew him and his kind well enough, and that if I had had it in my
hand, I should have seen his head and crest all of a bright ruby tint,
and the scale-like feathers of its throat glowing almost like fire; but
as it flew rapidly here and there, it seemed all of a dull, warm brown,
surrounded by a transparency formed by its rapidly-beating wings.

I sat watching the humming-bird till another and another came to disturb
the first, and begin chasing it, darting here and there like
dragon-flies, now up, and now down; round and round, and sometimes
coming so close that I could have beaten one to the ground with a bough.
Then, all at once, they soared up and up, passed over the trees, and
were gone, leaving me swinging my legs and whistling softly, as my eyes
now wandered about in search of something else.

Oaks draped with moss, a great cypress at the edge of the clearing,
which had grown up and up till it was higher than some of the trees, and
spread its boughs over them like an umbrella to keep off the rain, and
keeping off the sunshine as well, so that they had grown up so many
tall, thin trunks, with tops quite hidden by the dark green