May, 1919 A RETURN TO THE DAKOTA LAKE REGION 111 
When the females or young were in sight one of the cocky drakes would 
often bridle, strike an attitude, and shake his castanets. And to my great 
amusement, an absurd downy duckling, in a brood of eight that swam by with 
their mother, swam with his spike tail up and made motions that suggested 
the chin exercises of his paternal parent! A blue-billed drake that I fondly 
Dnagined was that parent, stood watching the downy procession pass, looking 
as if he would burst with pride! Later I saw a number of these youngsters 
assuming the airs of their forbears. And late in August when I happened to 
eross the Belgrade Bridge just as the mother Ruddy passed below with her 
small brood, strange to say, she herself drew in her chin in the veritable manner 
of her little lord. 
While Coots and Dabchicks and Ruddies seemed to make up the larger 
part of the population of the Coulee, there was a variety of families enjoying 
the safe harbor. Under the cat-tail wall of the nursery, one day, a family of 
pretty little ducklings was huddled close together with heads tucked down in 
their feathers, taking a noonday nap; while just inside the first row of cat-tails, 
their mother, whom I took for a Pintail, was sitting on a platform resting, but 
through her green screen keeping a watchful eye upon her sleeping brood. See- 
ing me, she rose to her feet and turned to face me for closer scrutiny, but dis- 
covering nothing alarming let her little ones sleep in peace. Another brood, 
preceding their mother, swam just inside a cat-tail screen whose stalks were 
vivified by the sun, their file crossing the shadowy open spaces like the ghosts 
of Macbeth’s dream. In another place a motherly Shoveller swam along trail- 
ing seventeen young. They appeared to be in two broods of slightly different 
sizes but I could not be sure enough of that to safely draw inferences concern- 
ing foster parents. A Duck with white at the base of her bill was doubtless a 
female Seaup, but no young were in evidence. Families of well grown Canvas- 
backs were seen out in the open at various points, up and down the Coulee. In 
une place they were riding out on the riffled purple water while lines of young 
Coots were keeping close under the quiet marsh grass border. 
One day when absorbed in watching the ever shifting life of the Coulee 
I glanced up to find a big brown butterfly fluttering high over the water, the 
Strong sunshine making it a joyous red against the blue sky. Another smaller 
brown butterfly with a subterminal band of red was seen and exquisite velvety 
red dragon flies with big eyes and bent legs were also greeted with enthusiasm ; 
the pleasure of the sight in each case showing how little keen color there was 
in the landscapes of yellow grain fields and blue sky. 
Although the most popular nursery of the Coulee was in the narrowest 
part bordering the pasture, where Marsh Wrens sang in the cat-tails and one 
heard occasional snatches of beJated song from the Sora in the marsh and the 
Western Meadowlark in the pasture, there was much of interest in the wider 
parts of the Coulee beyond. From the top of the bench commanding the big 
bend one could look west down the narrow channel, and north up the broad 
north and south section of the Coulee. It was from this point of vantage that, 
on several different days, I watched one parent Coot on the bank opposite me 
diving and feeding its red-headed young inside ripple rings, and in the bend on 
the weed-covered surface of the sluggish water, saw the other parent feeding 
regularly from the surface. 
One of the first birds I saw from the crest of the bank was a little brown 
Hooded Merganser, sitting low on the weedy surface. It was a Duck I had 
