48 A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH. 



that species of fire-arm, and when, with his fellow, he 

 swam about within rifle range of our camp, letting off 

 volleys of his wild ironical ha-ha, he little suspected 

 the dangerous gun that was matched against him. 

 As the rifle cracked both loons made the gesture of. 

 diving, but only one of them disappeared beneath the 

 water ; and when he came to the surface in a few 

 moments, a hundred or more yards away, and saw his 

 'companion did not follow, but was floating on the 

 water where he had last seen him, he took the alarm 

 and sped away in the distance. The bird I had killed 

 was a magnificent specimen, and I looked him over 

 with great interest. His glossy checkered coat, his 

 banded neck, his snow-white breast, his powerful lance- 

 shaped beak, his red eyes, his black, thin, slender, 

 marvelously delicate feet and legs, issuing from his 

 muscular thighs, and looking as if they had never 

 touched the ground, his strong wings well forward, 

 while his legs were quite at the apex, and the neat, 

 elegant model of the entire bird, speed and quickness 

 and strength stamped upon every feature, — all de- 

 lighted and lingered in the eye. The loon appears 

 like anything but a silly bird, unless you see him in 

 some collection, or in the vshop of the taxidermist, 

 where he usually looks very tame and goose-like« 

 Nature never meant the loon to stand up, or to use 

 his feet and legs for other purposes than swimming. 

 Indeed, he cannot stand except upon his tail in a per- 

 pendicular attitude, but in the collections he is poised 

 upon his feet like a barn-yard fowl, all the wildness, 

 and grace and alertness goes out of him. My speci- 

 men sits upon a table as upon the surface of the 

 water, his feet trailing behind him, his body low and 

 trim, his head elevated and slightly turned as if in the 



