A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 47 
The camper-out is always in luck if he can find, shel- 
tered by the trees, a soft hole in the ground, even if 
he has a stone for a pillow. The earth must open its 
arms a little for us even in life, if we are to sleep 
well upon its bosom. I have often heard my grand- 
father, who was a soldier of the Revolution, tell with 
great gusto how he once bivouacked in a little hollow 
made by the overturning of a tree, and slept so 
soundly that he did not wake up till his cradle was 
half full of water from a passing shower. 
What bird or other creature might represent the 
divinity of Pleasant Pond I do not know, but its 
demon, as of most northern inland waters, is the loon; 
and a very good demon he is too, suggesting some- 
thing not so much malevolent, as arch, sardcnic, ubi- 
quitous, circumventing, with just a tinge of something 
inhuman and uncanny. His fiery red eyes gleaming 
forth from that jet-black head are full of meaning. 
Then his strange horse laughter by day and his weird, 
doleful ery at night, like that of a lost and wandering 
spirit, recall no other bird or beast. He suggests 
something almost supernatural in his alertness and 
amazing quickness, cheating the shot and the bullet of 
the sportsman out of their aim. I know of but one 
other bird so quick, and that is the humming-bird, 
which | have never been able to kill with a gun. The 
loon laughs the shot-gun to scorn, and the obliging 
young farmer above referred to told me he had shot 
at them hundreds of times with his rifle, without 
effect, — they always dodged his bullet. We had in 
our party a breach-loading rifle, which weapon is per- 
haps an appreciable moment of time quicker than the 
ordinary muzzle loader, and this the poor loon could 
not or did not dodge. He had not timed himself to 
