THE OOLOGIST. 



119 



way for the real enthusiastic bird lover 

 is to don an old pair of trousers and 

 shoes, sling an old satchel full of cotton 

 batting, a drill and something to eat 

 over his shoulder and bid good bye to 

 dry land and start in. You will get 

 use to it after a while, and the posses- 

 sion of treasures which could never be 

 even seen from a boat will amply repay 

 all the itches and aches and bodily dis- 

 comforts you had in getting them. 



It was with a glad heart that I bade 

 good bye to my friends at the Univer- 

 sity of Minnesota the evening of the 

 twenty-fifth of May. 1899, after we had 

 taken our last examination, and — as we 

 hoped— passpd into the ranks of the 

 senior class. Pleasant as my university 

 life had been, I yearned for the wooded 

 bluffs and the grassy sloughs of my own 

 home, and it was with light heart that I 

 boarded the train the next morning. 

 Something over three hundred univer- 

 sity students left Minneapolis on that 

 train, but when it stopped for the night 

 at Jackson they were all gone. My 

 brother met me at the depot and soon 

 told me what plans had been laid for 

 the morrow. 



We were up at daylight the following 

 morning and at five o'clock I carefully 

 packed away my gun, Pony Premo No. 

 6, 4x5 camera, and collecting outfit, not 

 forgetting an ample lunch and wading 

 garments, in the double carriage that 

 was waiting for us, drove to a friend's, 

 and then we were off. There were four 

 of us, — my brother, who prefers dry 

 land to wading sloughs, my friend who 

 was also my wading companion, and 

 the driver, besides myself. Forty-five 

 minutes brought us to our destination, 

 a slough with grassy edges and several 

 acres of open water in the center, but 

 mostly covered with a dense growth of 

 wild rice and now and then thick patch- 

 es of rushes. 



The weather was fine and we were 

 out to enjoy ourselves. The two of us 

 soon donned our wading garments and 



began our search for eggs, while my 

 brother and the driver put out the 

 horses and prepared for their more 

 comfortable pastime — fishing on the 

 river. But we will not follow them 

 farther. Suflfice it to say that they had 

 fair luck, caught a nice string of pike 

 and bass, and got dinner ready for us 

 all. 



This slough, a mile or so wide by 

 four or five long, is divided by two con- 

 strictions into three nearly equal bod- 

 ies, connected by narrow passages of 

 clear running water. As we approach- 

 ed the first body whole flocks of ducks 

 flew up from the ponds along the edges, 

 Blue-winged Teal, Shovellers, Mallards, 

 Pintails and Gadwells, but I was much 

 surprised to see that they were mostly 

 in pairs, for at this time of year— May 

 twenty-seventh— it is unusual to see fe- 

 male ducks far away from their nests. 

 But it was not long before we found the 

 answer. This spring the sloughs were 

 early filled by the melting of the unus- 

 ual amount of snow, then the ducks 

 came, and finding conditions so favor- 

 able large numbers of them tarried 

 with us and began to nest. They made 

 their nests, as they neariy always do 

 here, just in the edge of last year's 

 mowing, but this spring was far rainier 

 than usual, the water in the sloughs 

 rose rapidly and covered the nests, 

 spoiled the eggs, and as a result hun- 

 dreds of ducks are seen in the sloughs 

 along the road, but they are all in pairs, 

 very few are nesting. During the 

 course of the day we found the nests of 

 two Teals', one Mallard's, one Shovell- 

 er's and one Redhead's nests under 

 water. 



As we waded along the grassy edge 

 of the slough where the water was 

 about a foot deep, I was agreeably sur- 

 prised to flush several pair of Wilson's 

 Pholarope. It was a pleasure to see 

 the little fellows run along the shore up 

 to their bellies in water, or swim from 

 bog to bog looking for mud worms. I 



