and then relapsed into silence, perfectly satisfied that 

 he knew all about it. 



For the information of this Market Street merchant 

 I will say that the l)rant is smaller than a goose, and at this 

 time of year is on his way Northward, merrily helped along 

 by hundreds of guns belching forth No. 3 to No. i shot 

 from all sorts of innocent looking shooting boxes, sur- 

 rounded with decoys, both artificial and natural. 



The brant is here in countless numbers. 



It is a bird of beautiful plumage and graceful form; 

 plump and fat, swift of wing and wary and suspicious of 

 anything and everything that bears the slightest semblance 

 of danger. There is also a mystery surrounding it which 

 has bothered the scientists for ages and is still bothering 

 them — namely, the wherabouts of its breeding habitat. 

 The late Professor Spencer Baird worried himself more, 

 perhaps, than any other savant over this undiscovered 

 territory. No living man, it is said, has ever seen the 

 nest or egg of the brant, and no matter how far explorers 

 have forced their way Northward, the brant has always 

 been seen winging on still further Nortli. Therefore the 

 guides out here (some of whom have grown gray in the 

 pursuit of ''brantin'") claim that there surely must be 

 an open Polar Sea where the weather is warm enough to 

 hatch out their eggs, and where food is plenty and nutri- 

 tious, for they come down in the fall of the year fat and 

 sleek as a pullet. The young birds come South strong of 

 wing and as cunning as — well, I might say of them, as 

 Buckingham said of the little Duke of York. "So cun- 

 ning and so young is wonderful !" 



90 



