CHAPTER XXV. 



THE SAND-HILL CRANE. 



" Fond of the speculative height, 

 Thither he wings his airy flight, 



And thence securely sees 



The bustle and the raree-show 



That occupy mankind below, 



Secure and at his ease. " 



Cowper. 



The next day we spent on the marshes and sandy reaches, gather- 

 ing roseate spoonbills, curlew, and plover. Long lines of white 

 pelicans sat on the islets, and several varieties of shore-birds ran 

 along the shallow water feeding on the little white sand-lice that 

 hopped out of the sand after every receding wave. 



Our great find was a flock of sand-hill crane that, unconscious 

 of the foes that were concealed in the rushes, flew over us, and as 

 we raised, received the contents of four barrels', which brought 

 down five of these great birds as large as an adjutant stork. We 

 gave them to the Cherubs to tote home, and at night their breasts 

 served as steaks for supper, tasting and appearing much like veni- 

 son. This bird migrates from the gulf to Hudson Bay, and, singular 

 to relate, nests equally well south or north. I recalled a day's 

 hunt in northern Iowa, near where Spirit Lake spread its several 

 sheets of water to the autumn sun. It was before visitors were 

 frequent there, and when hotels were unknown. A friend and I 

 drove up from our camp at Lost Island Lake, with the dawn yet 

 invisible, and a mist filling the hollows. The team, after a fast 

 run, halted on a high prairie hill, and smoking horses and men 

 paused to reconnoitre. The lakes lay before us, and the slough 

 stretched away to the east, yellow with rushes and dotted here and 

 there with big musk-rat houses, while wild rice marked the deeper 



Q 



