WATER-BIRD WAIFS 



forth past me, giving me splendid camera shots. Then 

 he would float quietly, a little apart from the ducks, 

 preen his feathers, flap his wings, or dive and chase 

 small fish. We could see him darting after them with 

 great eagerness, now this way, now that. 



Finally we stretched a mesh of chicken wire for a net 

 across the brook. Ned chased the grebe into the wire, 

 and I seized him as he was struggling to get through. 

 When I took him out of water he would wave his 

 muscular paddles so fast that they fairly blurred to our 

 sight. These join the body down by the tail, so that 

 the grebe must walk almost upright. He made awk- 

 ward work of it on land, falling flat when he tried to 

 run. After photographing him, we boxed him up and 

 expressed him to the Bronx Zoological Park, in New 

 York City, where I think he lived very happily with a 

 mate they happened to have for him. 



This brings me to the end of the pleasant task of 

 telling in a familiar way of the pleasure which I, by 

 myself, or in the lively, cheerful company of a boy, or 

 of others, have found in following up the birds of a 

 typical country region and becoming better and better 

 acquainted with them. I hope that Ned may find 

 bird-study a life-long delight and means of health and 

 vigor, as I have done, and with him a host of others — 

 boys and girls, men and women. 



This is not saying that there are not a great many 

 other interesting things in life. Indeed, as for myself, 

 I am not a mere bird-specialist, but am interested in 



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