204 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



was almost in the midst of the company. A 

 mallard's warning quack was the danger signal, 

 and then there was a wild scramble from the 

 mud-bank. They scurried from both sides of it, 

 helter-skelter, but instead of taking wing, they 

 all rushed out a few yards and dived. Then 

 while the villain whirled and darted impotently 

 here and there, the water beneath him fairly 

 seethed and boiled. Heads came up but in- 

 stantly bobbed down again, and little geysers 

 were thrown high in air by kicking of webbed 

 feet and frantic, or perhaps well-intentioned 

 wings. When the fugitives reached deeper 

 water, they cautiously came up to the sur- 

 face, then shook the moisture from their heads 

 and watched the foe with a sort of triumphant 

 satisfaction. Now that his swoop had failed, he 

 set off on slower wing, apparently unconcerned 

 and dead sure that on some other bar a duck 

 could be found to provide a dinner. 



Then as that part of the island seemed de- 

 serted, I followed the woody shore again and 

 soon found another host of the lake things. 

 This congregation apparently had not been dis- 

 turbed by the hunting of their deadly foe; they 

 were packed upon a strip of sandy shore, right 



