Black Mallards 



branch reaching down to rustle or quiver as I 

 crawled beneath it. When the tunnel was well 

 finished I left the pond to its solitude a few days, 

 thinking that the birds would surely notice some 

 telltale sign of my work, some fresh-cut stick or 

 wilted bough that my eyes had overlooked, and 

 be wary of the alders for a little time. 



And why such pains to get near a bird, you ask, 

 since one might better observe or shoot him from 

 a comfortable distance? Oh, just a notion of 

 mine, an odd notion, which can hardly be appre- 

 ciated till one has proved it in the open. As you 

 can seldom "feel" the quality of a stranger while 

 he remains even a few yards away, so with any 

 wild bird or beast: there is an impression arising 

 from nearness, from contact, which cannot be had 

 in any other way; and that swift impression, 

 which is both physical and mental, a judgment as 

 it were of the entire nature, is often more illu- 

 minating than hours of ordinary observation or 

 speculation. 



Such an impression is not new or strange, or 

 even modernly psychological. On the contrary, 

 it is the simplest matter in the world of sense, I 

 think, and perhaps also the surest. Most animals 

 have a significant way of touching their noses to 

 one of their own kind at irieeting; not to smell 

 him, as we imagine (they can smell him, or even 



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