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Bird - Lore 



half of it had disappeared. Hardly was I back in the blind before the bird 

 returned, and, again without warning, sprang lightly and gracefully upon the 

 nest — this time to seize the remaining fragment of shell, lest by its conspicu- 

 ousness it should add to the manifold dangers of her newly hatched young. 



She carried it but a 

 short distance away, 

 however, and dropped 

 it into the water. 



The first - hatched 

 young, having now be 

 come quite lively, had 

 struggled free from 

 the weeds with which 

 it had been covered; 

 but the newly-hatched 

 bird was still very 

 weak, and most of the 

 time lay on the bot- 

 tom of the nest with 

 its neck outstretched. 

 Occasionally as though 

 not yet recovered from 

 its previous cramped 

 existence, or as though 

 bored with the stern 

 horizon of the life be- 

 fore it, it raised its 

 head and indulged in a prodigious yawn — a yawn such as Ursus might give 

 when aroused from his winter's sleep. A more scientific diagnosis might 

 have explained these yawns as physical rather than emotional; but, to my 

 eye untrained in Podicipian infirmities, they expressed only weariness and 

 acute ennui. 



I next uncovered the eggs and young, thinking that the old bird might 

 see fit to get upon the nest and cover them. I was disappointed, however, for, 

 as she approached, she changed her alarm {keck) note to the call-note {cup), 

 and the first-hatched was strong enough and obedient enough to scramble 

 from the nest. The old bird swam up to meet it, backed up, lifting her wings, 

 and a moment later started off with her youngster upon her back, leaving me 

 to spend the rest of the day awaiting her return, communing with muskrats 

 and dragon-flies and the omnipresent mosquitos. 



Sixteen days passed before my next visit to the pond, when, of course, all 

 the eggs had hatched and the young had left the vicinity. One hundred yards 

 down the pond and quite in the open at the outer edge of the rushes, I flushed 



CLIMBING ABOARD 



