I was about to retrace my steps, when the measured stroke of paddles caught my ear, and presently the Indian "corial," with a brave batch of maroudis, and some smaller birds, turned a bend in the sinuous creek, and swiftly glided toward me, guided through the fallen trees and branches, which in some places almost choked the narrow stream, by the skillful arm of old Paley, as I had dubbed our usual steersman. The same keen eye that kept the frail bark clear of besetting obstacles, quickly detected me--though it was almost dark--stretched in the tree above him. Staying the progress of the "wood-skin" beneath, I slipped off my boots, and cautiously lowered myself down. I wouldn't advise any one to squat with booted heel in a flimsy "bark," especially when--intended for two and accommodating four--it is skimming along with the water an inch or so from the edge. A lurch to one side, and over you go--pleasantly enough in shallow water on a hot day, but any thing but that with twenty feet of black fluid beneath, and you not able to swim. A few weeks' practice had enabled me to balance myself without endangering others; so we landed safely. The birds, soon ready for the pot, were in a few minutes boiling away among the "cassareep" and peppers. We made hearty suppers that night; and as I lay in my hammock, taking the usual "soothing whiff" before resigning myself to sleep, the howling of monkeys, the bellowings of caymen, and the various cries of goatsucker, owl, and tiger-bird, blending with the occasional roar of the jaguar in his midnight courtship, the soughing of the breeze among the trees, and the murmur of the distant falls, made as discordant and motley a "hushaby" as one could imagine. Fortunately, all the screeching and howling in the universe would have failed to drive away my slumbers; so I quietly fell asleep, with the swaying branches brushing past my face. My latest waking thoughts, I remember, now recalling the wandering Waterton (he might have slept suspended from the same branch), and his fishing for caymen; now, the bees and their tiny trap-doors; now, my tiger-robbed coverlet, and the rapids we were to "shoot" in the morning; and, lastly, blending into a confused murmur--raising pleasant recollections of the old school-room buzz, and of the kindly comrades and anxious friends in my far-off home. We were up and away down the sparkling river at daybreak the next morning; and I had no other opportunity of observing the economy of the bees and their enemies; nor in my rambles did I ever chance to meet with another family of the same species, or with kindred habits. ANECDOTE OF A HAWK. An English work on Game Birds and Wild Fowls, recently published, contains the following curious anecdote: