174 



THE OOLOGIST. 



I have even seen a bird, to wise to fly, 

 batfle a dozen shootei's distributed 

 about a mill pond, for two hours. 



We Dwed to a likely spot and anchor- 

 ed and tished for an hour for bull-he-^ds. 

 and at last went into camp with a good 

 mess for breakfast. Then we sat near 

 the camp fire and wrote up our notes 

 for the daj% keeping up a string of 

 back-talk that would have convinced 

 anyone listening outside of our circle, 

 that we were deadly enemies The 

 Loons out on the lake continued to yell, 

 holler or twitter, as the impulse seized 

 them. There must have been five or 

 six at least, but it did seem that there 

 were twenty or more. 



The common song is cloo loo loo but 

 this is often varied to ko a whee loo loo 

 l-o-o-o. Coming over the lake, the 

 notes might almost be considered as the 

 repinings of lost spirits, if such things 

 could be. To a superstitious person, 

 the Loon's song at night appears the 

 very incovuation of all that is myster- 

 ious and frightful. It would not be a 

 difficult inatter to drive a nervous ten- 

 derfoot crazy with fear, by concocting 

 some horrible yarn to tit the <lread in- 

 spiring notes. Even yet, familiar as I 

 am with the weird clatter and jabber- 

 ing—the notes often produce momen- 

 tary chills down my back. But, never- 

 theless, the song, gutteral chucklings 

 and quavers, are very pleasing to me, 

 and ] do not know of another bird 

 which possesses notes, which are as al- 

 luring to my ears, both from their odd- 

 ity as well as the spirit of mystery sur- 

 rounding them as those of the laughing, 

 crazy Loon. 



Next morning I was awakened by the 

 following pleasantry from my compan- 

 ion: — "Get up you miserable Egg-hog. 

 Time for chuck." 



"You're a'nother." 



"Hurry up. Let's eat and then scoop 

 'nether set. Didn't the Loons holler in 

 the night." 



In ten minutes the coffee was boiling, 



and inside of a quarter of an hour more 

 we were again on the lake on the look- 

 out for Great Northern Diver's eggs. 

 We took several sets of Rails and other 

 eggs, but never had sight of another 

 Loon, or eggs. After fishing over a 

 good share of the lake, constantly on 

 the lookout for Lo<ms we finally gave it 

 up and prepared the horse for another 

 skip of a few miles. 



At Shelp Lake, which is merely a big 

 pond of a half mile in length, we took 

 a set of two dark colored eggs. The 

 nest was only just outside of the pond 

 lilly pods and not over three rods from 

 shore. The nest was situated so that 

 it could be seen from afar, and the eggs 

 could be distinguish! d at quite fifty 

 yards. This is generally the case and 

 I have more than once been able to dis- 

 tinguish the eggs at fully one hundred 

 yards, so nearly level is the surface of 

 the structure. 



We next visited Pine Lake but with- 

 out success in anything but fish. From 

 here we made a jump of seven miles to 

 the west shore of Gunn lake where we 

 busied ourselves the remainder of the 

 day with the land and water lairds and 

 in fishing. 



We camped on a point of land con- 

 venient for our purpose. The next 

 morning we started to take in the whole 

 lake but had to give up on account of 

 the large expanse of the sheet of wat- 

 er. We found no more Loon's nests 

 but were successful in taking a great 

 many shore birds and other eggs and 

 also had fair luck with the fish, and 

 took home a good string of small mouth 

 black bass. Also shot a uuml)er of 

 birds for the collection. 



The one point against a trip of this 

 kind is the expense of boat hire, as at m 

 most ever}' lake we were docked a quar- ■ 

 ter. My friend now has a means of 

 evading this outlay by carrying his 

 canvass boat, which occupies a small 

 space and weighs but thirty pounds. 



