bathing, they prefer the dancing ripples to 

 the still shining of the pools. Instinct, per- 

 haps, tells them of the greedy fish and big, 

 hungry turtles that lie in wait in the depths. 

 See that pair of wood-ducks wheedling and 

 chattering about the half-dead sycamore that 

 bends over the stream. Mrs. Duck made 

 her nest in the soft, rotten wood at top of 

 it. She has just hatched out a dozen balls 

 of yellow down, and is setting about getting 

 them down to the water. Once there, they 

 will swim like ducks indeed. But flying is 

 as yet beyond them, and the nest is twenty 

 feet in air. Look close, and you will see 

 the mother bird poised with half -spread 

 wings just outside the nest. Slowly, cau- 

 tiously, with low cries, her mate pushes 

 one of the ducklings quite upon the middle 

 of her back, gives a sharp, satisfied quack, 

 and at once she sails down, settles her- 

 self in mid-stream, dives gently, and leaves 

 her baby sitting on the water without in the 

 least knowing how he got there. With a 

 shake of the wings and a quack that says 

 " Take care !" she is off to the nest, and 

 keeps it up till all her little ones are launched. 

 As she brings the last a cruel thing happens. 

 Right below her flock there is a swift up- 

 swirling of water. Something brown and 



