186 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
it to us, but that did no good. She did confine 
herself to a radius of about three rods, but select- 
ing saplings at extreme points flew from one to 
the other as she inspected us, all the while wag- 
ging her tail nervously up and down and keeping 
up the monotonous smacking. 
Finding her as incorrigible as the mosquitoes, 
and realizing the approach of the dinner hour, 
my friend and I set out for home. But in our 
case the gods favored the cowardly, for, as we 
were brandishing our maple twigs in the faces of 
pursuing punkies and mosquitoes, we suddenly 
started up the little family we had been hunting 
for. 
They ran out from the leaves under our feet, _ 
scudding off in all directions. My two dogs 
pounced after them, and we flew in terror after 
the dogs, but Balder’s big jaws had nearly en- 
eulfed them before we had dragged him off. In 
the midst of the confusion the terrified mother flew 
to the ground and began trailing in a pitifully 
excited way. She spread out her wings and tail, 
dragging them along the earth as if helpless. On 
finding that we would not accept that decoy, and 
seeing that her little ones had hidden away under 
the leaves, she tried another plan and walked once 
slowly back and forth for about a rod on the 
side away from her young. Having, as she sup- 
posed, completely diverted our attention by these 
imaginative ruses, as the dogs were perfectly 
