146 Wilderness Ways. 



Twice since then I have heard from, summer camp- 

 ers of their having seen loons racing across a lake. I 

 have no doubt it is a frequent pastime with the birds 

 when the summer cares for the young are ended, and 

 autumn days are mellow, and fish are plenty, and there 

 are long hours just for fun together, before Hukweem 

 moves southward for the hard solitary winter life on 

 the sea-coast. 



Of all the loons that cried out to me in the night, 

 or shared the summer lakes with me, only one ever 

 gave me the opportunity of watching at close quarters. 

 It was on a very wild lake, so wild that no one had 

 ever visited it before in summer, and a mother loon felt 

 safe in leaving the open shore, where she generally 

 nests, and placing her eggs on a bog at the head of a 

 narrow bay. I found them there a day or two after 

 my arrival. 



I used to go at all hours of the day, hoping the 

 mother would get used to me and my canoe, so that 

 I could watch her later, teaching her little ones; but 

 her wildness was unconquerable. Whenever I came 

 in sight of the nest-bog, with only the loon's neck 

 and head visible, standing up very straight and still in 

 the grass, I would see her slip from the nest, steal 

 away through the green cover to a deep place, and 

 glide under water without leaving a ripple. Then, 



