BIRDS THAT PREY AND SOME THAT DO NOT 499 



to the first bend where they rested until the canoes 

 appeared in sight. One bird in particular kept up 

 this program from morning until late in the after- 

 noon and, as we made forty miles that day in our 

 canoes, it must have been quite a distance from 

 home before it at last dove and came up under 

 shelter of bushes along the shore, which offered 

 concealment until the canoes had passed and it 

 could fly up-stream unmolested. When we reached 

 the settlements the chimney-swifts were twittering 

 around over our heads, but it was the birds in the 

 dark, thick spruce woods which interested me most 

 and their wild, sweet unfamiliar notes will always 

 remain in my memory as a source of pleasure and 

 regret. Pleasure from the joy of recalling their 

 memory, and regret because they were unidentified 

 and I shall never know who our serenaders were. 



As might be expected in a country where all the 

 inhabitants, white and red, speak French, and can 

 use but few English words the 



BIRDS ALSO SPOKE FRENCH, 



at least one of them did, and we could hear its 

 plaintive voice, never near but always at a dis- 

 tance, in the forest crying, 



TRES BIEN! 



To an Eastern man probably the most inter- 

 esting bird in the West is a little fellow dressed in 

 a complete suit of dark-gray clothes. It is 



