of such a scene. Reflecting beings like ourselves, sink into a sort of melancholy reverie, and even the sprightliness of childhood is repressed, by the hallowed quiet that reigns all around. Guilt awakes from its long oblivion, and innocence becomes saddened with the stillness of nature.
As thus I lay, stretched in languid listlessness along the stream, as quiet as the leaves that breathed not a whisper above me, and gradually sinking into almost unconsciousness of the world and all it holds—the little birds sported about careless of my presence, and the insects pursued that incessant turmoil, which seems never to cense, until winter lays his icy fetters on all nature, and drives them into their inscrutable hiding places. There is a lapse in the recollection of the current of my thoughts at that moment; a short period of forgetfulness, from which I was roused by a hoarse croaking voice, exclaiming:
"Cruel, savage monster, what does he here?"
I looked all around, and could see only a hawk seated on the limb of a dry tree, eyeing me as I fancied with a peculiar expression of hostility. In a few moments I again relapsed into a profound reverie, from which I was awakened once more by a small squeaking whisper:
"I dare say the blood thirsty villain has been setting traps for us."
I looked again, and at first could see nothing from which I supposed the voice might proceed, but at the same time imagined I distinguished a sort of confused whisper, in which many little voices seemed commingled. My curiosity was awakened, and peering about quietly, I found it proceeded from a collection of animals, birds, and insects, gathered together for some unaccountable purpose. They seemed very much excited, and withal in a great passion about something, all talking at once. Listening attentively, I could distinguish one from the other.
"Let us pounce upon the tyrant, and kill him in his sleep," cried a bald eagle, "for he grudges me a miserable little lamb now and then, though I don't require one above once a week. See! where he wounded me in the wing, so that I can hardly get an honest living, by prey."
"Let me scratch his eyes out," screamed a hawk, "for he will not allow me peaceably to carry off a chicken from his barn yard, though I am dying of hunger, and come in open day to claim my natural, indefensible right."
