320 FEATHERED GAME 



branches of spruce and alder where you scarce 

 would think a bird could pass, or walking among 

 the boughs as lightly and as blithely as any of 

 the small warblers. Beneath flows the sluggish 

 current along whose shady edges, in waving cat- 

 tails or rankly growing grass is an abundance 

 of the food they love best. 



The traveler on our summer lakes, paddling 

 his noiseless way over still waters and along 

 forest-margined shores, when he comes sudden- 

 ly into their bends and coves may chance upon 

 the family comfortably snuggling down on a 

 fallen tree reaching out into the water. The 

 congregation is apt to disperse without cere- 

 mony — those ashore running into the woods, 

 those on the log or water rising into the air with 

 clatter and startled cries, shooting over the tree- 

 tops like stray fragments of a rainbow, — and 

 in two seconds he is alone with only a few idly 

 drifting feathers in the ripples on the water to 

 tell of his departed friends. Soon they will 

 drop back over the encircling woods in twos 

 and threes to revisit their favorite resting place. 



Perhaps if you have lived in ' ' the back coun- 

 try" of New England, in the months of April 

 and May you have had the good fortune to see 



