ook sharp, Mr Joe,
sir. Now, if you could catch that there fish with the duck in his jaws
too, it would be something like."

But Joe did not have the chance to catch a fish with the duck or
without, and Rob fervently hoped that he might not catch the captor of
the duck, for he felt certain that he had seen the jaws of a small
alligator close upon the unfortunate bird as he held the end of his line
tightly and waited for the bite which would not come.

But in the midst of that lovely solitude there was no room for
disappointment. Though they could not obtain exactly what they sought,
Rob felt that nature was offering them endless treasures, and his eye
was being constantly attracted by the flowers high up on the trees
across the river and the still more beautiful butterflies and birds
constantly passing here and there. Now it was some lovely object whose
large flat wings flashed with steely or purply blue, according to the
angle in which it was viewed, then butterflies of velvety black dashed
with orange and vermilion. Parrots of vivid green with scarlet heads
flew to and fro across the stream; and twice over a great _ara_ or
macaw, with its large, hooked beak and scarlet-and-blue feathering, a
very soldier in uniform among birds, flew over them, watching them
keenly as it uttered its harsh, discordant cry. Then, too, there were
the humming-birds darting here and there with bee-like flight, emitting
a flash every now and then as their metallic, scale-like feathers caught
the sun on their burnished surface.

"No," said Rob to himself, "one can't feel disappointed here," and soon
after, as he drew a long, deep breath full of satisfaction, "Oh, how
gloriously beautiful it all is! What would they say at home?"

Now he gazed down into the deep, clear, swiftly flowing water, where,
brilliantly illuminated by the sun, just beyond where he sat shaded by a
tree, he could see fish of all sizes floating motionless, apparently at
different depths, while farther out there were more and more, larger it
seemed, and as the depth and density of the water increased looking more
shadowy and strange.

"There are plenty of them, even if they don't bite," thought Rob; "and
if it were not that we must have them to eat, I don't know that I want
to catch them. Ugh!"

He involuntarily shrank away, but resumed his position at the edge of
the river, gazing down at where, with its four legs outstretched and its
tail waving softly, an a