XXI. 



The Eagle and his prey. — The Loon. — His Habits. — The 

 Partridge. — The Sq-dirrel and the Forest Mice. 



As we paddled down the lake we saw a brood of 

 lialf-grown ducks, some twenty rods from the shore, 

 swimming and gyrating round the old one, diving and 

 flapping their unfledged wings along on the water, 

 seemingly in a most playful humor. We paused close 

 in by the shore, and were watching their sports, when 

 we heard the alarm cry of the mother, and they in- 

 stantly scattered — pulling with feet and wings for the 

 shore, quaking and evincing in every way the Avildest 

 terror. Suddenly a bald eagle came like an arrow, 

 from his perch among the trees on a high bluff be- 

 yond them, and seizing, as he glanced from the water, 

 one of the brood in his great claws, bore it away 

 round the point, whence he made his stoop. It was a 

 beautiful exhibition of skill, and though it made a 



