THE SILENT RIVER 



71 



red waters or trip along the muddy banks 

 singly or in pairs. They are quite at home on 

 the bars and bayou flats, but it seems not a very 

 happy home for them that is judging by the 

 absence of snipe talk. The little teeter flies 

 ahead of you from point to point, but makes no 

 twitter, the yellow-leg seldom sounds his mellow 

 three-note call, and the kill-deer, even though 

 you shoot at him, will not cry <e Kill-deer ! " 

 "Kill-deer!" 



It may be the season when birds are mute, or 

 it may merely happen so for to-day, or it may 

 be that the silence of the river and the desert is 

 an oppressive influence ; but certainly you have 

 never seen bird-life so hopelessly sad. Even 

 the kingfisher, swinging down in a blue line 

 from a dead limb and skimming the water, 

 makes none of that rattling clatter that you 

 knew so well when you were a child by a New 

 England mill-stream. And what does a king- 

 fisher on such a river as this ? If it were filled 

 with fish he could not see them through that 

 thick water. 



The voiceless river ! From the canyon to the 

 sea it flows through deserts, and ever the seal of 

 silence is upon it. Even the scant life of its 

 borders is dumb birds with no note, animals 



