WILD LIFE ABOUT MY CABIN 



with him, but the bird would not remain long 

 enough in one position for him to get her picture. 

 The whip-poor-will builds no nest, l)ut lays her two 

 blunt, speckled eggs upon the dry leaves, where the 

 plumage of the sitting bird blends perfectly with her 

 surroundings. The eye, only a few feet away, has to 

 search long and carefully to make her out. Every 

 gray and brown and black tint of dry leaf and lichen, 

 aixd bit of bark or broken twig, is copied in her plum- 

 age. In a day or two, after the young are hatched, 

 the mother begins to move about with them through 

 the woods. 



When I want the wild of a little different flavor 

 and quality from that immediately about my cabin, 

 I go a mile through the woods to Black Creek, here 

 called the Shattega, and put my canoe into a long, 

 smooth, silent stretch of water that winds through a 

 heavily timbered marsh till it leads into Black Pond, 

 an oval sheet of water half a mile or more across. 

 Here I get the moist, spongy, tranquil, luxurious 

 side of Nature. Here she stands or sits knee-deep in 

 water, and wreathes herself with pond-lilies in sum- 

 mer, and bedecks herself with scarlet maples in 

 autumn. She is an Indian maiden, dark, subtle, 

 dreaming, with glances now and then that thrill 

 the wild blood in one's veins. The Shattega here is a 

 stream without banks and with a just perceptible 

 current. It is a waterway through a timbered marsh. 

 The level floor of the woods ends in an irregular line 



147 



