wing-strokes would bring them. Just over the 
heads of the pelicans they passed, and splash! 
splash! into the water they plunged. A cor- 
morant likes good fishing as well as any one, and 
with the pelicans driving together a great num- 
ber of fish it would be a poor kind of cormorant 
that did not seize the opportunity to get a few 
of them in such an easy way. When a cor- 
morant goes fishing it swims under water and 
out-manceuvres a fish in its own element. Then 
it comes up for air and goes down again. Soon 
all about the widgeons the black heads and long 
black necks of swimming cormorants were 
constantly bobbing up and then disappearing 
in a most uncanny manner. All this time the 
pelicans were closing in and every minute the 
circle was getting smaller. 
Baldpate must have been very glad that he 
was now old enough to fly, for in a very few 
minutes the place where the family had been 
feeding was a boiling whirlpool of pelicans, 
cormorants, and wildly darting fish. It was no 
place for a retiring young widgeon like Baldpate, 
and with the others of his family he was happy 
226 
