134
*
Lake Umbagog
Leonard's Pond
1897
June 9
(No 2)
as lightly as a fluff of thistle down and in
courses as erratic as those of the lucky bugs
whose gambols he disturbed. Now he sipped the water
eagerly, next he picked at a floating leaf or darted
after some small aquatic insect. Every now and then
he would raise the forward front of his body and flap
his tiny wings exactly in the manner of an old duck.
The floating sticks and rafts of drift that covered
a larger part of the surface did not embarrass his
progress in the least for he crossed them either
by running or by a succession of short, quick leaps
as nimble as those of a small frog. Poor little
waif! It was most pathetic to see him start off
thus alone & unprotected on his perilous journey of
life rejoicing, evidently, in his freedom and the 
novelty of his surroundings but quite unconscious 
of the dangers which lay before him. I could 
only hope that one or the other of the two female
Whistlers which we started from the water near
the nest there would adopt & care for him &
trust soon after we left it.
[margin]* 
Young
Whistler
set free
near the
nest [/margin]
  A cat-bird appeared on the island in Leonard's Pond
and sang for an hour or more on the morning of June 5th.
We heard nothing of him on either of the following two
days but he was singing there [delete]again[/delete] freely yesterday
and again this morning so he will probably stay
and breed.
[margin]Cat bird[/margin]