tting up on their tails and hind legs,
fiddling with their fore-feet and wiping their eyes. Some are rolling
around on the ground, contented. There are quantities of big blue-bottle
flies over the bark and hanging on the grasses around, too drunk to
steer a course flying; so they just buzz away like flying, and all
the time sitting still. The snake-feeders are too full to feed
anything--even more sap to themselves. There's a lot of hard-backed
bugs--beetles, I guess--colored like the brown, blue, and black of a
peacock's tail. They hang on until the legs of them are so wake they
can't stick a minute longer, and then they break away and fall to the
ground. They just lay there on their backs, fably clawing air. When it
wears off a bit, up they get, and go crawling back for more, and they so
full they bump into each other and roll over. Sometimes they can't climb
the tree until they wait to sober up a little. There's a lot of big
black-and-gold bumblebees, done for entire, stumbling over the bark and
rolling on the ground. They just lay there on their backs, rocking from
side to side, singing to themselves like fat, happy babies. The wild
bees keep up a steady buzzing with the beating of their wings.

"The butterflies are the worst old topers of them all. They're just a
circus! You never saw the like of the beauties! They come every color
you could be naming, and every shape you could be thinking up. They
drink and drink until, if I'm driving them away, they stagger as they
fly and turn somersaults in the air. If I lave them alone, they cling to
the grasses, shivering happy like; and I'm blest, Mother Duncan, if
the best of them could be unlocking the front door with a lead pencil,
even."

"I never heard of anything sae surprising," said Mrs. Duncan.

"It's a rare sight to watch them, and no one ever made a picture of a
thing like that before, I'm for thinking," said Freckles earnestly.

"Na," said Mrs. Duncan. "Ye can be pretty sure there didna. The Bird
Woman must have word in some way, if ye walk the line and I walk to town
and tell her. If ye think ye can wait until after supper, I am most
sure ye can gang yoursel', for Duncan is coming home and he'd be glad to
watch for ye. If he does na come, and na ane passes that I can send
word with today, I really will gang early in the morning and tell her
mysel'."

Freckles took his lunch and went to the swamp. He walked and watched
eagerly. He could find no trace of anyth