IN THE OOZY PLACES 159 



tussle to swallow it. The friend with whom I 

 was fishing that day informed me that a few 

 days previously he had examined the stomachs 

 of a number of pike caught across the lake and 

 found that the chief item on their bill of fare 

 had been coots, fairly well-grown. 



While cutting across a wide bay toward our 

 next calling-place, we ran into a duck kindergar- 

 ten. At least to all intents and purposes it ap- 

 peared to be such, for before us were some sixty 

 youngsters of the Quack clan, accompanied by 

 only three old birds. One of the latter plainly 

 was a bluebill, and just as plainly her business 

 there was the care of her own brood. As the rest 

 of the young were in evenly-sized detachments of 

 a dozen or so each, with the size differing in the 

 various groups, it was evident that maternal re- 

 sponsibility had been shirked somewhere. The 

 other two old birds present were white-winged 

 scoters, and as their charges were all blackish 

 and big-headed and rather ugly, it was a fairly 

 safe guess that we had disturbed a scoter kinder- 

 garten. 



It was noon when we turned into the mouth of 

 the Pipestone. Like the Plum, this part of the 

 stream is also flanked by lagoons, with little over- 



