Jan., 1918 A RETURN TO THE DAKOTA LAKE REGION 27 



saw a flock of gulls massed on the water at a safe distance from shore. Being 

 struck by raucous call notes quite unlike the familiar calls of the Franklin, I 

 walked up the beach to investigate, when I was pleased to discover a few near 

 shore showing the characteristic dark ear spot of the attractive Bonaparte 

 Gull. 



When I was down at the lake with some children, one day. a pair of long- 

 bodied Gadwall came feeding along the shore line. Alarmed at our intrusion, 

 the drake, with head up, watched the movements of the children behind the 

 thin border of trees, but the duck as if feeling safely guarded, fed calmly 

 along the edge of the water, moving her bill back and forth over the surface as 

 if for insects; though when the restless children ran down to the beach, both 

 ducks moved on up the shore. The comfortable pair were seen there again, 

 two days later, swimming companionably close together. 



The children were greatly interested in seeing a family of young Flickers 

 coming to the big mouth of their nest hole, and one little fellow horrified me 

 by asking earnestly, "Do we have to take themV Another Flicker family was 

 found in the same short strip of timber, and when the large broods were out. 

 the woods seemed full of Woodpeckers. Near here a Cuckoo slipped into the 

 cover of a low tree top one day as I came in sight, and during the nesting sea- 

 son Kingbirds flew silently away from trees, bushes, and fences, looking won- 

 derfully white and fluffy. Tn the trees bordering the lake in June the Crows 

 cawed so aggressively when I passed that but one interpretation was possible. 

 They bored me so, however, by making an outcry when I wanted to creep up 

 quietly to see Ducks, that I did not take a proper interest in their affairs. 



Near Stony Point, on the fourth of July, as I happened by, a female Gol- 

 den-eye with puffy brown head and yellow eye was swimming near shore. 

 When she caught sight of me, instead of swimming out farther from shore or 

 flying to another part of the beach as other ducks did when surprised, she stood 

 her ground, swimming sIoavIv back and forth along a short beat, helping to 

 propel herself by her neck, now held erect, now slanted back. Another female 

 joined her for a time, and once I thought I caught sight of the drake with the 

 green head and white bill spot, swinging in by the Point. The duck was so 

 evidently watching me that when I found a tree with a big hollow about ten 

 feet from the ground I grew hopeful. But though I was often in the neigh- 

 borhood, I never saw her again. Was it one of her sisters of which I was told 

 who dropped down a chimney instead of a hollow tree much to the surprise 

 of the housekeeper who came home to find her room full of soot and the be- 

 wildered duck on the windowsill? Xear Stony Point. Spotted Sandpipers were 

 often seen on the sand, tipping and teetering as the wash of the waves sounded 

 on the beach ; and one day two were seen on the rocks at the very tip of Stony 

 Point, standing their ground when the waves washed over their feet. 



Between Stony Point and the small bay in its arm, Avhen I was watching 

 for ducks, our band of farm horses filed by me. gentle mothers with their foals, 

 and spirited adventurous colts ; each in turn stopping to enquire about me or to 

 have their noses rubbed, and then wading out into the cane border of the lake, 

 their feet sucking up the deep mud as they moved around nibbling cane. A 

 pretty picture they made, with their red backs above the green, and one with 

 pleasantly cool suggestions on a warm June day. 



Undisturbed in the little bay, meanwhile, sat a pair of Shovellers, whom 

 I often found resting on stones in the quiet water. Seeing me they swam out 



