named, it has nothing to hide, no deeds which will not withstand the
scrutiny of the vividest rays.

To work out its destiny the night-jar depends on secret doings and on
flight soft as a falling leaf. It is a bird of the twilight and night.
Startled from brooding over its eggs or yet dependent chicks, it is
ghost-like in its flittings and disappearances. In broad daylight it
moves from its resting-place as a leaf blown by an erratic and sudden
puff, and vanishes as it touches the sheltering bosom of Mother Earth.
Mark the spot of its vanishment and approach never so cautiously, and you
see naught. Peer about and from your very feet that which had been deemed
to be a shred of bark rises and is wafted away again by a phantom zephyr.

The chick which the parent bird has hidden remains a puzzle. It moves
not, it may not blink. Its crafty parent has so nibbled and frayed the
edges of the decaying brown leaves among which it nestles that it has
become absorbed in the scene. There is nothing to distinguish between the
leaf-like feathers and the feather-like leaves. The instinct of the bird
has blotted itself out. It is there, but invisible, and to be discovered
only by the critical inspection of every inch of its environment. You
have found it; but not for minutes after its instinct has warned it to
possess its soul calmly and not to be afraid. So firm is its purpose that
if inadvertently you put your foot on its tender body it would not move
or utter cry. All its faculties are concentrated on impassiveness, and
thus does Nature guard its weakest and most helpless offspring.

While you ponder on the wonderful faith of the tiny creature which
suffers handling without resistance, the shred of bark, driven by the
imperceptible zephyr, falls a few yards away, and in an agony of anxiety
utters an imploring purr, or was it an imprecation? That half purr, half