16 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



the air. Some stand alert on the ground, well out 

 of range, with their long necks erect but with the 

 black heads always in motion. When the birds 

 think they are safe the curious habits of these sea- 

 fowl may be watched from a distance. They waddle 

 amongst the rabbit burrows quite at home, ever and 

 anon disappearing in the dense growth of low bushes. 

 They are on the best of terms with the rabbits, and 

 the association is curiously suggestive of the owls and 

 prairie dogs as one sees them on the western 

 plateaus of America two days out from Chicago. 

 The birds rise when they are approached and with 

 the hold of some primitive instinct strong upon one 

 the rough intervening ground is soon covered. 

 Peering among the ferns and thick undergrowth, 

 scratched with the brambles, hot in face and daubed 

 with the red earth, you are rewarded at last. A 

 roughly made nest full of large eggs, much larger 

 than those of the common wild duck and approach- 

 ing in size those of the wild goose, lies in the mouth 

 of a rabbit burrow in the dim light under the dense 

 bushes. 



The sight has an indescribable effect upon a range 

 of latent emotions. One watches the unloading of 

 tons of bullion bricks from an ocean liner without 

 the stirring of a pulse, and even with a sense of the 

 uninteresting squalor of the scene. But this nest 

 full of large creamy-white eggs, stained with the 

 red earth, revealing the last, inmost, anxious 

 privacy of wild nature in its secret haunts, what 

 primordial depths it uncovers ! How one turns 

 again glowing and transformed, the hunter, the 

 savage, the utterly unknown man, with the gorgeous 

 sense of achievement holding him by the throat. 



