66 Ways of Wood Folk. 



covered ; for whenever a duck came out to look round 

 — which happened almost every minute at first — I 

 could drop into the grass and be out of sight. 



In half an hour I had gained the edge of a low 

 bank, well covered by coarse water-grass. Carefully 

 pushing this aside, I looked through, and almost held 

 my breath, they were so near. Just below me, within 

 six feet, was a big drake, with head drawn down so 

 close to his body that I wondered what he had done 

 with his neck. His eyes were closed ; he was fast 

 asleep. In front of him were eight or ten more ducks 

 close together, all with heads under their wings. Scat- 

 tered about in the grass everywhere were small groups, 

 sleeping, or pluming their glossy dark feathers. 



Beside the pleasure of watching them, the first black 

 ducks that I had ever seen unconscious, there was the 

 satisfaction of thinking how completely they had been 

 outwitted at their own game of sharp watching. How 

 they would have jumped had they only known what 

 was lying there in the grass so near their hiding place ! 

 At first, every time I saw a pair of little black eyes 

 wink, or a head come from under a wing, I felt myself 

 shrinking close together in the thought that I was 

 discovered ; but that wore off after a time, when I 

 found that the eyes winked rather sleepily, and the 

 necks were taken out just to stretch them, much as 

 one would take a comfortable yawn. 



