The Mother Teal and the Overland Route 



fulness of promise. Indeed, the little Flickers 

 had almost chipped their glassy shells, and the 

 eggs, the ten treasures of the Teal, had lost the 

 look of mere interesting things, and were putting 

 on, each, an air of sleeping personality, warm, 

 sentient, pulsatory, and almost vocal. 



The little Teal had lost her mate early in the 

 season. At least, he had disappeared, and as 

 the land abounded in deadly foes, it was fair to 

 suppose him dead. But her attention was fully 

 taken up with her nest and her brood. 



All through the latter part of June she tended 

 them carefully, leaving but a little while each 

 day to seek food, and then covering them care- 

 fully with a dummy foster-mother that she had 

 made of down from her own breast. 



One morning, as she flew away, leaving the 

 dummy in charge, she heard an ominous crack- 

 ling in the thick willows near at hand, but she 

 wisely went on. When she returned, her neigh- 

 bor, the Flicker, was still uttering a note of 

 alarm, and down by her own nest were the 

 fresh tracks of a man. The dummy mother 

 had been disturbed, but, strange to tell, the 

 eggs were all there and unharmed. 



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