Identifier: crusoesislandbir00ober (find matches)
Title: Crusoe's Island; a bird-hunter's story
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Ober, Frederick A. (Frederick Albion), 1849-1913
Subjects: Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731 Birds
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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-apple tree—Creepers andcrawlers—The crested cassican—A birds nest five feet long. I was not, perhaps, quite the formidable Fel-low that our old friend Robinson Crusoe was whenhe set out for his walks abroad ; but I was equally wellequipped for a fight, if need be. To tell the truth,I never could understand how he managed to carrythat cumbersome broadsword through the tangledthickets; not to mention his hatchet, pistols, andheavy fowling piece. And then, again, he was soheavily laden with clothing and accoutrements, in atropical climate, with the thermometer (if he had one)indicating somewhere near a hundred degrees in theshade. Now, my costume was the result of many monthsof experience with the hot sun of tropical regions,and I always dressed with an eye to comfort. Inthe first place, on my head a helmet made of papyruspith, which was imported from the East Indies—thefavorite head gear of all tropical explorers, becauseit is so light, and at the same time absolutely imper- 18
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\/ W§. vious to the rays of the hottest sun. My(i coat and trousers were of dun-coloredduck, shirt of coarse linen, and all threeI as full of pockets as they could he. Slung 1!> 20 CEUSOES ISLAND. over my shoulder was a broad strap, attached to awillow trout basket, which is better than a gamebag, as the birds you carry in it can not be crushed.My pockets were filled with shells loaded with shotof different sizes, and in one hand I carried a lightbreech-loading shotgun. Having slept well the night before, breakfastedwell that morning, and having washed away my caresin the sea with my bath at daylight, I felt as freeand buoyant as the forest birds whose acquaintance Iwas then about to seek. The sun hadnt been long above the waves whenhe might have seen me on the edge of the great for-est, which I had noted the very first day of my arrivalhere, but which I had not hitherto made an attemptto penetrate. But, as if to warn me from the woods,on the very edge of it I had a tussle with an

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