'THE REDHEAD IS A GREAT LAYER' 



Among the Water Fowl 



the epicure at home in the northern wilds, out on 

 the lake, asleep in her ark — what a scene it was! 



But for lack of 

 time I might 

 have managed to 

 photograph her 

 some day by ac- 

 customing her to 

 the sight of the 

 cam era. At 

 length she raised 

 her head, and 

 saw me. For 

 an instant she 

 seemed para- 

 lyzed, then she stood up and, with a quick spring, 

 went fiying ofif, just over the tops of the reeds. 



The same six 

 eggs were there, 

 heavily incu- 

 bated I found 

 when I exam- 

 ined them more 

 closely. And I 

 saw another 

 thing I had over- 

 looked before : 

 only two of the 

 eggs were her 

 own, the other 

 four being Redhead eggs. Not over a gunshot from 

 this spot, in a clump of reeds away out in the lake, 

 a quarter of a mile from shore, another Canvasback 



THE SAME NEST OF REDHEAD, SHOWING SURROL'NDINCS 



204 



