consultation, or comparing notes.

The trees where I had sought shelter were old, and grew here and there,
singly or in scattered groups: it was a pretty wilderness of mingled
tree, shrub and flower. I was surprised to find here some very large and
ancient-looking fig-trees, and numbers of wasps and flies were busy
feeding on a few over-ripe figs on the higher branches. Honey-bees also
roamed about everywhere, extracting sweets from the autumn bloom, and
filling the sunny glades with a soft, monotonous murmur of sound.
Walking on full of happy thoughts and a keen sense of the sweetness of
life pervading me, I presently noticed that a multitude of small birds
were gathering about me, flitting through the trees overhead and the
bushes on either hand, but always keeping near me, apparently as much
excited at my presence as if I had been a gigantic owl, or some such
unnatural monster. Their increasing numbers and incessant excited
chirping and chattering at first served to amuse, but in the end began
to irritate me. I observed, too, that the alarm was spreading, and that
larger birds, usually shy of men--pigeons, jays, and magpies, I fancied
they were--now began to make their appearance. Could it be, thought I
with some concern, that I had wandered into some uninhabited wilderness,
to cause so great a commotion among the little feathered people? I very
soon dismissed this as an idle thought, for one does not find houses,
domestic animals, and fruit-trees in desert places. No, it was simply
the inherent cantankerousness of little birds which caused them to annoy
me. Looking about on the ground for something to throw at them, I found
in the grass a freshly-fallen walnut, and, breaking the shell, I quickly
ate the contents. Never had anything tasted so pleasant to me before!
But it had a curious effect on me, for, whereas before eating it I had
not felt hungry, I now seemed to be famishing, and began excitedly
searching about for more nuts. They were lying everywhere in the