48 A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 
that species of fire-arm, and when, with his fellow, he 
swam about within rifle range of our camp, letting off 
volleys of his wild ironical ha-ha, he little suspected 
the dangerous gun that was matched against him. 
As the rifle cracked both loons made the gesture of 
diving, but only one of them disappeared beneath the 
water; and when he came to the surface in a few 
moments, a hundred or more yards away, and saw his 
companion did not follow, but was floating on the 
water where he had last seen him, he took the alarm 
and sped away in the distance. The bird i had killed 
was a magnificent specimen, and I looked him over 
with great interest. His glossy checkered coat, his 
banded neck, his snow-white breast, his powerful lance- 
shaped beak, his red eyes, his black, thin, slender, 
marvelously delicate feet and legs, issuing from his 
muscular thighs, and looking as if they had never 
touched the ground, his strong wings well forward, 
while his legs were quite at the apex, and the neat, 
elegant model of the entire bird, speed and quickness 
and strength stamped upon every feature, — all de- 
lighted and lingered in the eye. The loon appears 
like anything but a silly bird, unless you see him in 
some collection, or in the shop of the taxidermist, 
where he usually looks very tame and goose-like. 
Nature never meant the loon to stand up, or to use 
his feet and legs for other purposes than swimming. 
Indeed, he cannot stand except upon his tail in a per- 
pendicular attitude, but in the collections he is poised 
upon his feet like a barn-yard fowl, all the wildness, 
and grace and alertness goes out of him. My speci- 
men sits upon a table as upon the surface of the 
water, his feet trailing behind him, his body low and 
trim, his head elevated and slightly turned as if in the 
