20 BIEDS OF THE WATER 



Often the bird sits entirely covered, deep 

 in tliis dark mat of rotting fibre, and with 

 barely room to raise her head. The bolt 

 holes are so narrow and perpendicular, and 

 the runs so tortuous that no rabbit would 

 ever willingly take refuge in a thicket so 

 liable to be blocked. The Scaup sits, more- 

 over, with extraordinary nerve. Before I 

 spotted the third nest of the four found 

 this season I had burrowed — corkscrewed — 

 deep into years' accumulation of old flax, 

 and had actually got my nose within a foot 

 of the sitting Scaup. It was, indeed, the 

 smooth shining horn of the bill that first 

 drew my attention to the bird, motionless in 

 the gloom beneath these mats of shredded 

 fibre. 



This duck allowed me to gently remove 

 much of this half-rotten stuff, indeed, her 

 head had become visible, and I was roughly 

 focussing the position with a white hand- 

 kerchief when at last she scrambled up her 

 bolt hole, hustled along her narrow run, 

 and presently splashed into the water. 



Another nest I found by microscopically 

 careful examination of the lake edge, at 



