Black Mallards 



before creeping back to my blind in the larches. 

 An hour or more passed in the timeless quiet; 

 while the water became as glass under the after- 

 noon sun, and a deer moved near the hidden brood 

 without flushing them or even bringing a head up 

 where I could see it. Then the mother returned, 

 calling as she came; and the first thing she did 

 was to circle warily over the same deer-path, 

 stretching her neck down for a close inspection. 

 "Aha! that thing is gone, but where?" she said in 

 every line and motion of her inquisitive head or 

 pulsating wings, as she sped away to find the 

 answer. 



Twice she circled the bog, her eyes searching 

 every cranny and shadow of it. From her high 

 flight she slanted straight down and pitched fair 

 in the middle of the pond, where for some moments 

 she sat motionless, her head up, looking, listening, 

 a perfect image of alertness in the midst of wild- 

 ness. Satisfied at last that no trouble was near, 

 she turned to the shore with a low call; and out of 

 the bogan pell-mell rushed the little ones, splash- 

 ing, cheeping, half lifting themselves with their 

 tiny wings as they scurried over the water to join 

 the mother. For a full hour I had kept my glasses 

 almost continuously on that bogan; then with 

 divided attention I cast expectant glances at it 

 when I heard the mother's incoming note, the 



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