A few minutes later I stepped forth on the platform, some two hundred yards in circumference, whereon the vessel rested.

The mist immediately around me was fast dispersing; five hundred feet below it still concealed everything.

On three sides descent was barred by sheer precipices; on the fourth a steep slope promised a practicable path, at least as far as my eye could reach.

I placed the weaker and smaller of my birds in portable cages, and then commenced my experiment by taking out a strong-winged cuckoo and throwing him downwards over the precipice.

He fell at first almost like a stone; but before he was quite lost to sight in the mist, I had the pleasure of seeing that he had spread his wings, and was able to sustain himself.