DAYS ON THE ILLINOIS. II^ 



bill as he reappeared. Silent, on one leg, the 

 heron stood on many a bar, and around the edge 

 of many a pond shone the snowy plumage of the 

 egret, whose callow brood was beginning to chat- 

 ter in the top of some lofty sycamore. Thrushes 

 were melodious in the shades, with kinglets and 

 song-sparrows twittering in the more open places. 

 Near the timbered bluffs that sometimes came 

 to the river, the bark of the gray squirrel was a 

 common sound, and the fluffy yellow of the fox- 

 squirrel outstretched on some big limb a common 

 sight. 



And when along the moist banks the azure 

 bloom of the mimulus began to help out the 

 brilliant blue of the lobelia, and the wild cucum- 

 ber to festoon the piles of drift, then, at almost 

 every turn in the sloughs, young ducks, nearly 

 large. enough to shoot, went flapping along the 

 water, scudding into the grass and reeds, or squeal- 

 ing into the air from almost every sand-bar. 

 Along the river they were strung like beads on 

 the stranded logs, and almost everywhere in the 

 long grass and reeds were so many hiding at 

 your approach, instead of taking wing, that any 

 kind of a dog that would retrieve would bring 



