THE SCIENCE OF SCULLING WILD FOWL. 215 



house, and are working our way slowly through the 

 crooked channel, made deep in places by the submarine 

 inhabitants, whose houses we have despoiled for a blind. 

 'Tis in the fall, and as we go on unheard and unseen, 

 reed-birds flutter up at our sides, jack-snipe utter 

 their " Scaipe, Scaipe,*' and pitch down, alighting after 

 a short flight. On the muddy shore, we see yellow legs 

 teetering and wading ; while again on the higher banks, 

 cattle come down to drink, golden plover run and stop, 

 then run and stop again, with indecision, yet with the 

 greatest regularity. Over our heads there flies time and 

 again great flocks of blackbirds, chirping and chatter- 

 ing, the dusky brown of the female looking subdued in 

 color, when placed side by side with the glossy black 

 of its mate, as he swerves up and down with graceful 

 undulations, at all times showing the deep bright red 

 on his wings fringed with scarlet and gold. We notice 

 the king-fisher, as it goes along crying " chir-r-r-r, chir- 

 r-r-r," then poises itself over the water, and drops like 

 a bullet, disappearing for a second beneath the surface 

 of the water, then springs up with a minnow in its bill 

 and alighting on an old dead tree, looks at us as if to 

 say, " wasn't that done slick ? " 



The open lake before us discloses its surface thickly 

 dotted with muskrat houses and the shores lined with 

 rushes. As the boat skims along, the pond-lily leaves 

 lie flat on the water at either side, and the lake ap- 

 pears to be in possession, if not in control of mud-hens. 

 See how they swim from us ! their bright blue bills 

 looking almost white in the sunlight. And look at 

 them get up ! It seems so hard for them to rise from 

 the stream, and they fly from us splattering the water, 

 kicking it from them, half flying, half running on the 



