“I’m going to bring my camera here and take a picture of some of you girls sitting on that wonderful big rock that slopes back above this exquisite fern bed. These are so delicate.”
“New growth, I guess,” said Hilary. “But look at those across the road now. They are more than half as tall as Isabel.”
“Take a leaf of this sweet fern between your fingers and squeeze it. It is just as spicy as can be. But we’d better hurry up a little,” continued Betty. “The rest of them are ahead of us.”
“Well, what is here!” exclaimed Isabel just then, stopping where on each side of the road there was a row of immense, brown ant-hills, built up high from the level ground. “They must be years old. See how the grass is growing out from the top of that one, and look at the big holes toward the bottom! I suppose those are the tunnels going back from the openings.”
With interest the girls watched the busy inhabitants of this curious apartment house. “Looks like sawdust on top,” said one.
Along the more shady portions of the pretty, winding road few birds were seen. All seemed to be out where sunshine lit up their dining rooms. Occasionally a squirrel or chipmunk scolded them roundly, as the girls passed too near their place of abode. As they returned to camp, Hilary and Lilian lingered in the rear. “It was right here in these bushes,” Hilary was saying. “I did not get a good look at it all over, but I hope and think that it is a black-billed cuckoo, for I so seldom see one, that is, to be sure of it. Let’s creep up real softly and maybe we’ll see it. I think it stays around here.”
The cuckoo proved to be a very accommodating bird, for when they reached the neighborhood of the bushes, out it flew from one near them, retreating to one which was farther off, but had so much less foliage that the heavy bird was easily seen.
“It is!” whispered Hilary. “It lifted its head and I saw every bit of its bill. And when it flew there was no sign of black in its tail.”
“That will be another point for you, Hilary.”
“But you identified it, too.”