Watching the Brant Grow Big. 59 



perhaps saw one carousal after travelling 

 to foreign shores, and it will be buried on 

 this cold bar by shifting sands. Here is a 

 feather that was shaken from the wing of 

 a goose yesterday, when I was not as near 

 as this to the goose. All about in the 

 sand are tracks of plebeian gulls, but here 

 is something better here is the patrician 

 track made by the pretty black foot of a 

 brant. 



I lie down flat upon my back in the box. 

 The brant decoys are standing all about 

 so naturally that only the Captain and I 

 would suspect them to be such false 

 things. I am waiting. The box is cold 

 and wet. The spray flies into my eyes. 

 The surf roars in the distance. One eye 

 peers over the edge of the box and scans 

 the horizon. What a jingle of wings was 

 that, as a beautiful whistler and his homely 

 mate passed overhead. They have fin- 

 ished the preliminary love experience early 

 in the year, and are now constant and true 

 to each other long before the spring 

 zephyrs have felted into love the vaga- 

 rious fancies of other water fowl. How 



