104 PAMILIAE LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



extraordinary distance, and reappears far away, on 

 the other side of the lake, perhaps, quite out of gun- 

 shot. The following is Mr. Cheney's description of 

 an alarmed loon's ruethod of progression on the sur- 

 face of the water : " Suddenly there was a furious 

 dashing and splashing just behind us, and in a mo- 

 ment more one of them rushed by very near us, both 

 flying and swimming, with wings in the air and feet 

 in the water. He swept by us with a noise like a 

 steamboat, but no boat conld equal his speed. At 

 every stroke of his wings he smote the water as well 

 as the air." 



But aquatic birds are always a source of surprise 

 to us when we see the rapidity of their progression 

 through the water. Last June, when the Pemige- 

 wasset River, New Hampshire, had swollen to an 

 enormous and resistless flood after a long rain, and I 

 was watching the seething water sweeping beneath 

 the bridge with fearful rapidity, I was much sur- 

 prised to witness the successful efforts of a red- 

 breasted sheldrake {Merganser serrator) making up- 

 stream, with no inconsiderable amount of speed. I 

 shouted and clapped my hands, and the bird, taking 

 immediate alarm, flapped his wings and shot over the 

 surface of the flying water like an express train. I 

 calculated at the time he was making fully thirty 

 miles an hour, although relatively with the river bank 



