CHAPTER VI 



THE DUCK-MOTHERS 



FOR several seasons it had been one of my 

 kodaking ambitions to get a picture of a 

 wild duck on her nest, so when my friend 

 and kindred spirit, Andy, informed me that he 

 had found a very good subject, I was not slow in 

 accepting his invitation to go out to try my 

 chances with Madame Spoonbill. Accordingly 

 next morning I shouldered the kodak pack and 

 struck out along the road in the direction of the 

 farm-house. 



It was June 19th, it was early in the morning, 

 and I was afield. The morning world was full of 

 sound, sweet and harmonious, as befitted this 

 month of the greatest of the passions. From the 

 sand-hills came the rippling whistle of the upland 

 plover and the worshipful song-service of the 

 vesper sparrow; from the meadow flat, the exu- 

 berance of Robert of Lincoln, punctuated by a 

 hundred meadow lark ditties ; on a grassy knoll, 



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