478 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



grass it progressed satisfactorily, though only for a short distance. 

 This pleased the old birds, for one of them came to the plucky little 

 fellow, and, with one wing extended, patted the young bird on the 

 head and back most tenderly. At this I laughed aloud, most unfor- 

 tunately, and immediately the old birds flew to the nesting-tree, and 

 then discovered my hiding-place. Of all the scoldings I ever got, 

 that from the owls, this evening, was the severest. As I moved away 

 I recalled the oft-witnessed scene of the king-birds worrying crows. 

 It was the same thing in my case. Keeping just out of reach of my 

 cane, they swooped about my head and snapped their bills viciously. 

 They did not dare to strike me, but they came unpleasantly near, 

 and it was with a feeling of comfort that I finally reached safer 

 quarters. 



A chance conversation discovered to me one companion of many 

 of my walks. When a mere boy, Uz Gaunt lived in this neighbor- 

 hood, having a little cottage adjoining my grandfather's woods, and 

 he, above all others, gave me my first lesson in practical zoology. Of 

 the stories which he would tell when he was in the humor, the follow- 

 ing talk about turtles is a specimen : 



" Christmas of '77 was a green one, you may remember," remarked 

 Uz, as he shook the ashes from his pipe. " It didn't need any hickory- 

 logs blazin' on the hearth, such as these," and he stirred the ashes and 

 rearranged the wood on the andirons as he spoke of them. " The 

 weather had been mild for a long time, and once I heard frogs singin'. 

 Well, this kind of thing sort of came to a focus on Christmas-day, 

 which was warm even in the shade. The river was low, the meadows 

 dry, and the crows as noisy as in April. I felt sort of restless-like, 

 and took a walk in the meadows. I left my gun home, and thought 

 I'd just look 'round. Without thinking of them when I started out, 

 I wandered over to your marshy meadow, and began pokin' about 

 with my cane for snappers. You know I take kindly to a bowl of 

 snapper-soup of my own fixin'." 



"Yes, I do that, and can run along neck-and-neck with you, when 

 you're the cook." 



" Well, I followed the main ditch down, jumpin' from hassock to 

 hassock, and kept probin' in the mud with my cane, when, after a bit 

 I felt something hard at the end of my stick. It wasn't a stone or a 

 stump, I knew at once. There was a little tremble run up the stick to 

 my hand that told me that much — a sort of shake, as though you hit 

 an empty barrel, as near as I can tell you. I'd a turtle down in the 

 mud, and concluded to bring it out into the daylight. There's more 

 than one way to do this, but none of 'em is an easy job to get through 

 •with. I kept probin' 'round him, to try and make out where his head 

 was, and then I could feel for his tail, and pull him out. Now this 

 does very well for one of your common snappers, but didn't work so 

 easy in this case. I could sort of feel that turtle all over the meadow. 



