WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



flood subsided I went and measured the place I had tried to drive 

 into. It was an abrupt embankment and where I would have 

 driven the water had been nine feet deep and the current stiff, 

 so undoubtedly the horse saved our lives by refusing to enter. 



After we left the meadow the last resort was to drive south on 

 the road until we reached the corn-field, cross that and thus ap- 

 proach the quarry on its west side. We stopped to take a picture 

 of the Kingfisher, fishing from an old fence-post; with a small 

 camera and long distance it was, but a beautiful thing. Then we 

 drove south. The road lay straight before us and at no place 

 was the water over two feet deep, so we were safe there. We got 

 into the field, then into the quarry, and were overjoyed to find 

 our birds. 



During our absence they had grown, it seemed, fully a fourth 

 larger, the pinfeathers about the base of the beak had opened, 

 making their faces much handsomer, the whole plumage had 

 grown and taken on color, and the size of their eyes, beaks and 

 crests was comical. We sat on the ground and played with them 

 while we rested from our rough experiences. 



We used special care with those studies of them, as we ex- 

 pected they would be the last, and in one of them we felt repaid 

 for all our effort. But in field work one never can tell, for this 

 was not the end. That came unexpectedly two days later. Pass- 

 ing the quarry with Raymond, I suggested to him that we see if 

 the birds were gone. As we approached, there were the youngsters 

 in the doorway, evidently meditating their first flight. They 

 would crowd up beside each other, half lift their wings, peep 

 down over the edge, duck back and then threaten to try again. 



"Oh, Raymond!" I gasped. "That is my picture! There is the 

 real natural-history picture of those birds. Fifty of them made 

 when taken from their nest and set up somewhere are not worth 

 that one! Oh, I must have that!" 



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