“I went on ahead a little piece, and turned up a side hill where there was an old rail fence that divides our woods from the Cobbs’ piece. Right in front of me I found a bully patch of May-flowers, and I sat down and began cutting them with my knife (’cause they have wiry sort of stems) and made them in a nice even bunch, when something ahead sort of made me keep my eyes glued to it. It was under the slant of the lowest fence rail. I thought it was a striped snake curled up round, at first, because I felt eyes were looking at me, though it was too dark to see them, at first. Did you ever have that feeling, Gray Lady?” “Yes, I have had it, Dave, and I know what a strange sensation it is. The last time I had it I felt no better when I saw the eyes; in fact, little cold shivers went all over, for I was far away from here, and the eyes were those of a rattlesnake that was coiled up, amid the stones of a ledge, where I was gathering some rare wild flowers.” “Oh, what _did_ you do?” cried all the children, together. “I backed away as fast as I could, keeping my eyes upon the snake, until I was at a safe distance, where he could not spring at me, and then I very foolishly ran! What did you do, Dave?” “I crept up nearer until I got a good look, and then I saw that it was a bird. It was sitting ever so still, with its head well down on its shoulders and its long beak close to its breast. It had queer, big eyes set up on top of its head, and round like a frog’s, not like any other bird that I know of.” “The eyes of the Woodcock and its cousins, the Snipe, are set in this way, so that, when they are boring in the mud for food, they can keep watch behind them as well as in front,” said Gray Lady. “First, I thought the bird was dead, it kept so still,” continued Dave, “but I could see its breast raised a little with its breathing.” “If it had been dead, its eyes would have been closed,” said Gray Lady. “It is one of the many mysterious and unaccountable facts about a bird, that it is the only animal that closes its own eyes when death touches it.” “It wasn’t afraid, so I thought that I would just smooth its feathers,” said Dave. “I did, and it didn’t fly, only just puffed up a little, so I thought I would lift it very carefully to see if there were any eggs under it, and there were four nice, sort of round, light, brown eggs, the colour that our Plymouth Rocks lay, only mottled. But the bird didn’t like to be lifted, and she sort of growled inside, the way a hen does, so I set her down and went away.”