again. Thoroughly curious now, I went on 

 a still hunt after the stranger, and after much 

 difficulty succeeded in shooting him from the 

 end of a bushy point. The only unusual 

 thing about him was that a large mussel, 

 such as grow on the rocks in salt water, had 

 closed his shells firmly on the bird's tongue 

 in such a way that he could neither be 

 crushed by the bird's bill nor scratched off 

 by the bird's foot. I pulled the mussel off, 

 put it in my pocket, and went home more 

 mystified than before. 



That night I hunted up an old fisherman, 

 who had a big store of information in his 

 head about all kinds of wild things, and 

 asked him if he had ever seen a shoal-duck 

 in fresh water. " Once or twice," he said ; 

 " they kept dipping their heads under water, 

 kinder crazy like." But he had no explana- 

 tion to offer until I showed him the mussel 

 that I had found on the duck's tongue. 

 Then his face lightened. " Mussels of that 

 kind won't live in fresh water," he declared 

 at a glance ; and then the explanation of the 

 birds' queer actions flashed into both our heads 



