6 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



was the sounds and not the words which con- 

 veyed to the listeners the intense emotion of the 

 speaker. 



Now there comes up the wind a flight of mallards. 

 These wild ancestors of all our domestic ducks 

 lower themselves into the pool from their flight, 

 cutting the surface with the action of a swift boat 

 taking the water. They have been feeding inland, 

 and the sight of this sunny sheltered backwater soon 

 produces a remarkable effect. A preliminary chat- 

 ter and a single bird seems to go suddenly mad. 

 With half-outstretched wings and with lightning- 

 like rapidity it takes short glancing dives beneath 

 the surface. The chatter is taken up by the other 

 birds, and the infection spreads instantly. Within 

 a few seconds every duck is darting through the 

 water, under or over it, as if bewitched. The excite- 

 ment is communicated to the swimming birds of 

 other kinds standing near and within a brief space 

 one kind after another, each keeping apart by 

 itself and threatening or protesting to the others, 

 joins with wild cries in the boisterous scene in the 

 water. It is all play. Yet the signs and cries 

 which accompany the wild movements are evidently 

 as clearly interpreted by the various kinds of birds 

 as if the language had been spoken words and as if 

 the scene and actors had been exclusively human. 

 Now at a low raucous note from a single bird all 

 action is instantly frozen and every neck erect. 

 From the outskirts of the crowd comes the quick 

 plaintive call of the warning curlew ; and every 

 bird, thrilled by some primordial instinct of alarm, 

 is instantly in the air with a roaring sound of wings. 

 It has been a scene of life excited, full of understand- 



