28 Ways of Wood Folk. 



next moment Don, my old dog, had him. In a hungry 

 moment he had driven his bill through both shells of 

 a scallop, which slipped or worked its way up to his 

 nostrils, muzzling the bird perfectly with a hard shell 

 ring. The poor fellow by desperate trying could open 

 his mouth barely wide enough to drink or to swallow 

 the tiniest morsel. He must have been in this con- 

 dition a long time, for the bill was half worn through, 

 and he was so light that the wind blew him about like 

 a great feather when he attempted to fly. 



Fortunately Don was a good retriever and had 

 brought the duck in with scarcely a quill rufifled ; so 

 I had the satisfaction of breaking his bands and let- 

 ting him go free with a splendid rush. But the wind 

 was too much for him ; he dropped back into the 

 water and went skittering down the harbor like a lady 

 with too much skirt and too big a hat in boisterous 

 weather. Meanwhile Don lay on the sand, head up, 

 ears up, whining eagerly for the word to fetch. Then 

 he dropped his head, and drew a long breath, and 

 tried to puzzle it out why a man should go out on a 

 freezing day in February, and tramp, and row, and 

 get wet to find a bird, only to let him go after he had 

 been fairly caught. 



Kwaseekho the shelldrake leads a double life. In 

 winter he may be found almost anywhere along the 

 Massachusetts coast and southward, where he leads a 



