May, 1919 A RETURN TO.THE DAKOTA LAKE REGION 113 
seem, they were not quite Swallow-like enough to get on the wing. After flying 
back and forth over the surface for some time, the gray-winged flock took a 
turn in the sky; then suddenly, with one accord they swept down, fairly drop- 
ped down, to the water. When finally leaving they made a charming picture, 
the whole band of gray wings trooping up toward the sunpath. 
While the Black Terns had been going through their evolutions, they had 
been watched by a group of Canvasbacks and other large Ducks which lay at 
ease on the water, phlegmatic Ducks to whom the performances of the nervous 
aeronauts must have been as edifying as the evolutions of aeroplanes to earth- 
bound multitudes. Besides the Terns, Franklin Gulls also flew down the Coulee 
—onee, from high in the sky they swept down low over it—and one night on 
their way to the lake, a large mixed flock of Franklin Gulls and Black Terns 
made the sky over the pasture a moving picture of weaving wings. The next 
morning a flock of the Terns was beating low over a strip of plowed ground 
back of the Coulee, dropping down to pick up insects as they had over the. 
water. Another time a party of Franklin Gulls was sitting near together, part 
of them bathing in the Coulee. 
When sitting on the highest bench overlooking the big bend, one morning, 
I was idly watching the six or eight horse reapers and binders of the surround- 
ing acres—one farmer was harvesting with three of the great machines, having 
borrowed one of a neighbor !—and before my eyes level-topped grain fields 
were changing to stubble fields dotted with sheaves of wheat, when suddenly 
a loud splash below brought me to my feet on the edge of the bank. In a line 
leading from the water to the bank, the tules shook and bent down—some one 
was coming! Peering down where the approaching bird or beast must show 
through the marsh grass, I discovered the striped nose of a large badger! As 
he started to climb up the hill I bethought me of the great hole in the grass at 
my feet, and in a moment more, up came the badger, swinging down his burrow 
hike a flash, so near I could almost have touched him. Growling and sounds of 
digging then came up from the cavern. Was the hole being enlarged in view 
of the enemy on the rampart above? When the noise had stopped and I was 
leaving, I leaned over and peered down into the burrow again, and back in the 
shadow of the doorway saw dimly what seemed to be a large light-colored head 
——so it was a case of the watcher watched! 
Two days later I heard a snarl from the badger below, but that was all. 
His cave had been well located, in a strip of prairie left between the wheat 
fields and the Coulee, a strip in which sagebrush and a patch of silver leaf 
made a last stand against the advance of civilization; and in which let us 
hope he might well be left undisturbed to carry on his good work of ridding the 
fields of destructive rodents. 
Following this strip of prairie around a bend of the Coulee one day, I 
came upon a mound of soft earth a yard or more across, marked with foot- 
prints and having a hole so large that it proclaimed badgers. At the same time 
I began to hear queer animal noises, and the Redwings in the tules on the edge 
of the Coulee began fussing. Then the grass tops next the tules began to 
Shake, and the shaking passed up a line toward me until at last I saw white- 
tipped hairs. By this time the noises from two approaching combatants were 
so angry and threatening, with snappy barks and snarls, that I stepped a little 
to one side. On their way toward me one of the belligerents caught sight of me 
and ran off in the grass, but the other one climbed up on a second mound and 
