MANNERS OF THE WATEE THRUSH 307 



tbe notes are sounded loud and fearlessly, the bird dislikes in- 

 trusion; and it sings best far away from prying eyes, amidst 

 the dark recesses of the swamp. 



Should you force your way, — perhaps by paddling in a light 

 canoe beneath the overhanging mysteries of the dank morass, — 

 perhaps by clambering among the fallen logs that jut from 

 treacherous black depths of ooze and slime — you may even catch 

 a glimpse of this coy songster as he dashes onward into yet 

 more secret fastness of his watery and seldom sunlit home. 

 His song is still now; silence broods, or else a sharp short note 

 of anger and anxiety betrays the presence of the timid bird, too 

 restless and too nervous in his vague alarm to hide in safety, 

 but rather dallying with danger as he leaps and balances on 

 log, moss-heap, or branchlet. But this is only when he feels 

 the cares and full responsibilities of home and family. Later in 

 the season, when these things are off his mind, he is quite 

 another fellow, who will meet you more than half-way should 

 you chance to find him then, with a wondering, perhaps, yet 

 with a confident and quite familiar, air of easy unconcern. 

 Anywhere by the water's edge — in the debris of the wide- 

 stretched river-bottom, in the flowery tangle of the brook, 

 around the margins of the little pools that dot the surface where 

 tall oaks and hickories make pleasant shade — there rambles the 

 Water Thrush. Watch him now, and see how prettily he walks, 

 rustling among the fallen leaves where he threads his way like 

 a mouse, or wading even up to his knees in the shallow minia- 

 ture lakes, like a Sandpiper by the sea-shore, all intent in quest 

 of the aquatic insects, worms, and tiny molluscs and crustace- 

 ans that form his varied food.* But as he rambles on in this 

 gliding course, the mincing steps are constantly arrested, and 

 the dainty stroller poises in a curious way to see-saw on his legs, 

 quite like a Titlark or a Spotted Sandpiper. All of his genus 

 share this gait, quite different from the hopping movement with 

 which the SylvicoUdcc in general progress — but see! he catches 

 sight of us, and quite breaks off the thread of such reflections as 

 he casts his bright brown eye upon us with a coquettish turning 

 sideways of the head. Let the pretty picture be — we leave him 

 to resume in peace his morning's walk, bidding good-speed. 



* Gosse has found the stomach to contaia " water-insects and shells ". Gen- 

 try has observed the beetles Plaiijnus cupripennis, Harpalus pennsylvanicus, 

 and Cratonychus pertinax, the Neuropterous larvne of Agrion and Phryganea, 

 both larvas and imagos of various Noctuid and Tineid moths, and the Dip- 

 terous Culex tceniorhynchus. 



