THE MOTHER MURRE 



77 



<"'' Vwith two fingers with my whole hand, while 

 (loud camera click-clacked, click-clacked hardly 

 " ? feet away! 



T) It was a thrilling moment. I was not killing any 

 Ithing. I had no long-range rifle in my hands, com- 

 C,ing up against the wind toward an unsuspecting 

 ; creature hundreds of yards away. This was no 

 (wounded leopard charging me; no mother-bear de- 

 fending with her giant might a captured cub. It 

 r - was only a mother-bird, the size of a wild duck, with 

 > swift wings at her command, hiding under those 

 ]wings her own and another's young, and her own 

 boundless fear! 



For the second time in my life I had taken cap-; 



r ,^tive with my bare hands a free wild bird. No, I had 



not taken her captive. She had made herself a cap- 



. ; tive ; she had taken herself in the strong net of her 



Smother-love. 



f} And now her terror seemed quite gone. At the 

 s : first touch of my hand I think she felt the love re- 

 ^3> straining it, and without fear or fret she let me reach 

 '.--under her and pull out the babies. But she reached 

 I after them with her bill to tuck them back out of 

 1 } sight, and when I did not let them go, she sidled 

 " toward me, quacking softly, a language that I per- 

 fectly understood, and was quick to respond to. I 

 gave them back, fuzzy and black and white. She 

 got them under her, stood up over them, pushed her 

 wings down hard around them, her stout tail down, 



rry)V< s^^C**>*Jtes 



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