202 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



up into the skies in a purple column, for they were leaving 

 for the south. 



As the red wintry sun fades from the glimmering landscape, 

 Frank shakes himself, cries hoarsely, " Frank, Frank," and 

 rises lazily into the misty air, his long legs stretched out 

 like stilts, as he flies a few yards above the snow to a 

 planting, now fading on the landscape, to roost. But no 

 mate answers him, for many of his friends are lying 

 frozen beneath the stars, and others had been feeding by 

 a wake on the glassy mere, in company with coots and 

 rooks. 



Next morning, at sunrise, Frank comes back to his feeding- 

 place, flying some twenty yards above the greenish lighted 

 snow-fields ere he alights, with a hoarse, melancholy " Frank," 

 by a little spring in a frozen dike, the rustling yellow reed- 

 stalks screening him from the cutting winds. 



I saw one walk along such a bank, with neck " reined " 

 out in hopes that some one had broken a hole in the ice and 

 the frost had turned up some dead eels ; but he was disap- 

 pointed, for he turned and settled himself down to watch 

 at his station by the spring. 



Soon another living thing appeared black upon the snow, 

 creeping up stealthily behind the thin and rustling reed- 

 screen. The black mass stopped, there was a muffled report, 

 a puff of smoke cleared away slowly, and Frank lay dying. 

 I could see his arched-neck with bristling feathers drawn 

 back ready to strike at the eyes of the retriever, who 

 bounded forward to seize him ; but at a sign from his 

 master, the dog stopped, wagging his tail, and the man 

 approached the bird, and struck it a deadly blow with the 

 stock of his gun, muttering, "You old hog." 



"Why a hog?" I called 



The keen sharp face of the gunner turned slowly, as he 

 began to reload his old bess, an ancient muzzle-loader. 



" Why a hog ? " he drawled, in sing-song, as he measured 

 Frank's wing-spread 6 feet 2 inches. " Why a hog ? Bless 



