Lake Umbagog.
1909
June 14 [June 14, 1909]
(No 5)
could now watch them to great advantage through my glass
for they were in smooth, open water, although close to shore,
and the sunlight struck full on them. Still further on they
came to a quantity of drift wood among which the ducklings
scattered rather widely still diving for their food, however, and
making no attempt to glean it from the mossy, water-soaked
logs and floating trash of various kinds as they young of
surface-feeding water fowl like the Black Duck and Wood Duck
would doubtless have done. Whenever one of the young Whistlers
became widely separated and lost to views of the rest it
would set up a thin, shrill, feeble peep-peep-peep-ing
very like the of a young Turkey and frequently would
appear running over the surface with surprising speed
with almost its entire body except the hinder and quite
clear of the water. Sometimes the entire brood would
scud thus, for a distance of several yards, to rejoin their