dry an' fly-about. I'm six-futt one myself, but my step was a mere joke
to his stride! He seemed split up to the neck, like a pair o' human
compasses, an' his clo's fitted so tight that he might have passed for a
livin' skeleton!

"Well, it was close upon sundown, an' I was joggin' along to my tent in
the bush when I came to an openin' where I saw the critter down on one
knee an' his gun up takin' aim at somethin'. I stopped to let him have
his shot, for I count it a mortal sin to spoil a man's sport, an' I
looked hard to see what it was he was goin' to let drive at, but never a
thing could I see, far or near, except a small bit of a bird about the
size of a big bee, sittin' on a branch not far from his nose an' cockin'
its eye at him as much as to say, `Well, you air a queer 'un!'
`Surely,' thought I, `he ain't a-goin' to blaze at _that_!' But I'd
scarce thought it when he did blaze at it an' down it came flop on its
back, as dead as mutton!

"`Well, stranger,' says I, goin' for'ard, `you do seem to be hard up for
victuals when you'd shoot a small thing like that!' `Not at all, my
good man,' says he--an' the critter had a kindly smile an' a sensible
face enough--`you must know that I am shootin' birds for scientific
purposes. I am an ornithologist.'

"`Oh!' say I, for I didn't rightly know what else to say to that.

"`Yes,' says he; `an' see here.'

"Wi' that he opens a bag he had on his back an' showed me a lot o'
birds, big an' small, that he'd been shootin'; an' then he pulls out a
small book, in which he'd been makin' picturs of 'em--an' r'ally I was
raither took wi' that for the critter had got 'em down there almost as
good as natur'. They actooally looked as if they was alive!

"`Shut the book, sir,' says I, `or they'll all escape!'

"It was only a small joke I meant, but the critter took it for a big 'un
an' larfed at it till he made me half ashamed.

"`D'ye know any of these birds?' he axed, arter we'd looked at a lot of
'em.

"`Know 'em?' says I; `I should think I does! Why, I've lived among 'em
ever since I was a babby!'

"`Indeed!' says he, an' he got quite excited, `how interestin'! An' do
you know anythin' about their habits?'

"`If you mean by that their ways o' goin' on,' says I, `there's hardly a
thing about 'em that I don't know, except what they _think_, an'
sometimes I've a sort o' notion I could make a pretty fair guess at that
too.'

"`Will you come to my camp and spend th