Dinner With Diversions 



gleaming red that sheathed itself suspiciously 

 from time to time as though he had let up a 

 screen against my observation. Nor was he to 

 be hurried to unseemly flight. He stretched him- 

 self to his full height, shook out his mouse-gray 

 plumage. And it was only after I had had time 

 to notice the green around his nostrils and the 

 regularity of the white spots that circled his 

 wings as though spilled there thickly from a 

 paint-brush, that he gave a decorous flap and 

 trailed his legs behind him in swift transforma- 

 tion from gawkiness to grace. 



All the more marked in contrast with their 

 dignity, is the zest with which these birds devour 

 their evening meal. At the moment they have 

 stationed themselves below me, where the stream 

 runs swift and shallow, and stand there patient 

 and vmgainly, pursuing without comment their 

 silent task. But let a beak strike out with light- 

 ning stab and a fish be tilted up as in a vise, 

 and there is real gusto to the gulp that sends him 

 ripphng down a shirt front. It is, however, but 

 the momentary betrayal of an appetite. In a 

 second the neck is again refm*led, the sharp eyes 



[91] 



