62 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



every wild husband does, by his bride, in search of a nesting 

 place. Out into the open blue they flew, mounting higher 

 and higher until they were well above the range of the 

 best guns, and then through the biting cold air on their 

 journey northward. With a speed that would carry 

 them many a mile every hour, it did not require long 

 to bring them to the lakes and marshes, where his wife 

 informed him they were to stay for the summer. Already 

 they were two weeks behind time, so without many prelimi- 

 naries they established a home on a point that projected 

 into a shallow marsh lake. The female wallowed a hole 

 in the ground among the tops of a fallen tree, carefully 

 lined it with grass and with down plucked from her own 

 breast, and soon a new pearl was being added every day to 

 the treasure trove it contained. 



Others of their race were nesting at different points 

 around this lake, and it was from these companions that 

 Johnnie learned much of his wisdom. In the farmyard 

 he had learned to fear nothing except being caught on 

 picking day. Even there he had learned that if he could 

 escape from the flock and manage to hide under the straw 

 in the old straw pile or to creep into the dried leaves caught 

 by an old brush pile whenever any one attempted to drive 

 the flock into the barn, he could escape; and when the 

 picking was over he might return to the flock in safety, 

 for the mistress would not go to the trouble to catch and 

 pick only one duck. 



He had learned that when a dog comes about, one is 

 pretty sure to be safe if he pays no attention to it, for then 

 the dog takes it for granted that he belongs where he is; 

 but he had had no experience with wolves, the wild dogs of 

 the forests. One day a woK wandered by where Johnnie 



