38 



WILD FOWL SHOOTING. 



the Summer ducks, come in mild weather, stay with 

 us, breed and bring up their young along running 

 creeks, where alders and maples, willows and birch bend 

 fraternally toward each other across some babbling 

 brook, their topmost limbs intertwining affectionately, 

 exchanging friendly greetings with each other, as the 

 night and day winds of summer cause them to gently 

 rub together. 



Such are the places these pretty birds frequent, and 

 bring up their young. They love to swim in the shal- 

 low water, male and female together, surrounded by 

 tiny forms of yellow, their young, all busily engaged 

 in nipping tender buds, picking up seeds, or chasing 

 some fat bug as it twinkles on the water. How happy 

 they are in such places ! Swimming at the side and 

 under overhanging banks, that seem like huge bluffs in 

 comparison with their diminutive bodies, turning their 

 little heads sidewise as they watch a fly or grasshopper, 

 as it clings to some waving blade of grass, just on the 

 brink of the shore, or watching it with still greater in- 

 terest, as it flies or jumps so quickly down on some 

 moss-covered stone, their little stomachs craving the 

 delicacy, while their father and mother watch them 

 with pride and solicitous interest. Then to see them 

 when a fly or bug drops into the water ; the whole flock 

 scramble for it in haste, pell-mell, the fortunate one 

 gulps it down, fearing no indigestion, while the others, 

 foiled, but not discouraged, swim along more deter- 

 mined than before. When they reach some old sunken 

 log, its black body anchored in the shallow water, the 

 little ones discover a perfect horde of bugs floating at its 

 edge. The mother clambers on to the log, and bask- 

 ing in the sunshine, preens herself, stands up to her 



