Thus Encouraged I Filled My Pockets
Again And Started Afresh, And Then Finding That By Following The
Proper Plan I Made No Progress I Adopted A New One, Which Was To Take
A Handful Of Salt And Hurl It At The Bird's Tail.
Still I couldn't
touch the tail; my violent action only frightened the bird and caused
it to fly away, a dozen yards or so, before dropping down again to
resume its seed-searching business.
By-and-by I was told by somebody that birds could not be caught by
putting salt on their tails; that I was being made a fool of, and this
was a great shock to me, since I had been taught to believe that it
was wicked to tell a lie. Now for the first time I discovered that
there were lies and lies, or untruths that were not lies, which one
could tell innocently although they were invented and deliberately
told to deceive. This angered me at first, and I wanted to know how I
was to distinguish between real lies and lies that were not lies, and
the only answer I got was that I could distinguish. them by not being
a fool!
In the next adventure to be told we pass from the love (or tameness)
of the turtle to the rage of the vulture. It may be remarked in
passing that the vernacular name of the dove I have described is
_Torcasa,_ which I take it is a corruption of Tortola, the name first
given to it by the early colonists on account of its slight
resemblance to the turtle-dove of Europe.
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