AMONG THE HEEDS AND RUSHES. 



THE LOON. 



** Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow mist 



Their halos, wavering thistledowns of light. 

 The loon that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, 

 Laughed, and the echoes, huddled in affright, 

 Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night." 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 



The Washers of the Shroud. 



THE loon can fly more easily than the grebe, though it 

 needs a breeze and a run on the water before it can mount 

 unsteadily on its short and narrow wings. Though it cannot 

 walk at all, it has a shuffling movement on land that is better 

 than the grebe's utter helplessness, and it can get on shore 

 and build a nest out of reach of the water. 



Unlike the grebe, the loon does not nest on a raft of grass, 

 but on " a right little, tight little island." Those on which I 

 have known loons to nest were islets a rod or two across, 

 sometimes marshy, but more often dry and rocky and covered 

 with a thick growth of grass. All Mother Loon asked was 

 grass enough for a nest, and to conceal herself while sitting. 

 The nest is not very well made, but there is a slight hollow 

 that holds the two big mud-colored eggs dotted with dark 

 brown spots. In time there come out two of the smuttiest- 

 colored little youngsters you ever saw, about the size of gos- 

 lings, dusty black all over at first but later with a whitish belly 

 and with comical little bills entirely unlike their mother's. 



But perhaps you are not acquainted with Mother Loon. She 

 is a large bird, as big as a Christmas turkey ; that is, she will 

 weigh ten pounds if in good condition. It always seems to me 

 that there is something very motherly about her stout, heavy 

 body, squatting close down upon her big feet, with her wise 

 old green head, as soft as the softest plush, and her two white 



