Birds' Courtship and Marriage 203 



vanished, the same thing coming nearer and nearer 

 and dropping in the grass at your feet in the late 

 twilight, or early dawn, when sight and fancy 

 are one and the same thing. Before I was ten 

 years of age I had followed this gripping mystery 

 all over that swamp with a Panther hidden behind 

 every tree, and a convention of them assembling 

 in every thicket. I just could not give it up if I 

 died for it. A ditch through Mills' Swamp emp- 

 tied into the Puckyan, right opposite "the deep 

 hole," which everyone knew was the very best 

 place to catch chubs for pickerel bait. Freshets 

 from the melting of deep snows in the spring, 

 and occasional heavy rains in summer brought 

 floods of muddy water into the sluggish river and 

 along the south side, under the shadow of ven- 

 erable elms ; a considerable mud bank was formed 

 and this mud bank was, from time to time, per- 

 forated by holes as big as a lead pencil, a kind 

 of a Brobdingnagian piece of honey-comb with no 

 suggestion of honey. It was a crazy trestle-board 

 upon which the outline of no theory could be 

 erected. 



It was likely early in May or late April, on 

 the eve of a fishing Saturday that I fished the 

 deep hole for chubs with which to catch the king 

 of great Northern Pike out of Green Lake, and 

 if not actually the king, I at least, hoped for the 

 heir-apparent. I think it rained and I did not 



