3^ GAME-BIRDS AT HOME. 



fisher springing his noisy rattle on the dead Hmb 

 or darting into the water. 



Woodcock were plenty here, for feeding- 

 grounds were everywhere, while on much of the 

 dry ridges was the best kind of cover. One 

 place was almost as good as another. Where the 

 deep blue of the lobelia was nodding over some 

 damp shore, a bird was as apt to spring at midday 

 as in the solemn shade of the swamp-maples and 

 oaks, where grass could hardly struggle through 

 the gloom. One might be in the long grass that 

 around some fallen tree-top on the higher ground 

 wound upward to the light through the garlands 

 of white and green the wild cucumber wove over 

 the dead limbs. And out from behind it he 

 might skim low and wheel around the next tree 

 so quickly that all you would know of the bird's 

 presence would be the whistle of its wings. 



Often the rustling of the dog would cease 

 before we had moored the boat, and we would 

 find him but a fev/ yards away, with nose pro- 

 jecting from the reeds along some muddy shore. 

 Where the red flowers of the knot-grass nodded 

 over the snowy petals of the water-lily left by 

 the receding water we might see, scarce a yard 



