A MINSTREL OF THE MARSHES 
and see these youngsters develop, that we 
went again and again, taking our lunch with 
us and lying in the marshes in a duck-boat 
all day. Many have described the beauties 
of marshland, but can any one register its 
heat ? When the thermometer placidly 
climbs the nineties on the shady hotel 
veranda, out in the rushes a smothering, 
sickening mugginess steams up from the 
sluggish water and beats down from the 
blistering sky. However, it seems to affect 
the spirits of the blackbirds not one whit. 
Bitterns, rails, and tern hid under coverts, 
but the blackbird piped his Konkaree ” as 
cheerfully as ever.^ Satanic in his coloring, 
the red-wing is veritably an imp on a hot 
July day. He seems to mock at your dis- 
comfort and to exult in the swarms of midges 
and marshflies the heat coaxes up from the 
water. 
Not so the yellow-head. At all times 
less active than the red-wing, he seeks a cat- 
tail on the edge of the channel where every 
puff of air will come his way, and sings in 
57 
