THE SCIENCE OF SCULLING WILD FOWL. 215 
house, and are working our way slowly through the 
crooked channel, made deep in places by the submarine 
inhabitants, whose houses we have despoiled for a blind. 
"Tis in the fall, and as we go on unheard and unseen, 
reed-birds flutter up at our sides, jack-snipe utter 
their “ Scaipe, Scaipe,’ and pitch down, alighting after 
a Short flight. On the muddy shore, we see yellow legs 
teetering and wading; while again on the higher banks, 
cattle come down to drink, golden plover run and stop, 
then run and stop again, with indecision, yet with the 
greatest regularity. Over our heads there flies time and 
again great flocks of blackbirds, chirping and chatter- 
ing, the dusky brown of the female looking subdued in 
color, when placed side by side with the glossy black 
of its mate, as he swerves up and down with graceful 
undulations, at all times showing the deep bright red 
on his wings fringed with scarlet and gold. We notice 
the king-fisher, as it goes along crying “ chir-r-r-r, chir- 
r--r,” then poises itself over the water, and drops like 
a bullet, disappearing for a second beneath the surface 
of the water, then springs up with a minnow in its’ bill 
and alighting on an old dead tree, looks at us as if to 
say, “ wasn’t that done slick ?”’ 
The open lake before us discloses its surface thickly 
dotted with muskrat houses and the shores lined with 
rushes. As the boat skims along, the pond-lily leaves 
lie flat on the water at either side, and the lake ap- 
pears to be in possession, if not in control of mud-hens. 
See how they swim from us! their bright blue bills 
looking almost white in the sunlight. And look at 
them get up! It seems so hard for them to rise from 
the stream, and they fly from us splattering the water, 
kicking it from them, half flying, half running on the 
