ng rather odd, as she had on part of her
summer suit and part of her winter one. Father Loon had much the same
appearance; for, of course, birds that live in the water cannot shed
their feathers as many at a time as Corbie could, but must change their
feather-wear gradually, so that they may always have enough on to keep
their bodies dry. And summer and winter, you may be sure that a loon
takes good care of his clothes, oiling them well to keep them
waterproof.

Fall grew into winter, and the nest where Gavia had brooded the spring
before now held a mound of snow in its lap. The stranded log against
which the little Olair had been bumped while he was napping, months ago,
was glazed over with a sparkling crust. The water where Gavia and Father
Loon had fished for their children, and had played games and run races
with Neighbor Loons, was sealed tight with a heavy cover of ice.

And it may be, if you should sail the seas this winter, that you will
see the two Olairs far, far out upon the water. What made them leave the
pleasures of Immer Lake just when they did, I cannot explain. I do not
understand it well enough. I never felt quite sure why Peter Piper left
the shore where the cardinal flowers glowed, for far Brazil. All I can
tell you about it is that a feeling came over the loons that is called a
migration instinct, and, almost before they knew what was happening to
them, they were laughing weirdly through the ocean storms.

If you see them, you will know that they are strange birds whose
ancestors reach back and back through the ages, maybe a million years.
You will think--as who would not?--that a loon is a wonderful gift that
Nature has brought down through all the centuries; a living relic of a
time of which we know very little except from fossils men find and guess
about.

It is small wonder their songs sound strange to our ears, for their
voices have echoed through a world too old for us to know. It makes us a
bit timid to think about all this, as it does the minister of Immer
Lake, who sits before his door through many a summer twilight, playing
on his violin until the loons answer him with their _Tremble Song_:--

"O, ha-ha-ha, ho! O, ha-ha-ha, ho!"

V

EVE AND PETRO

If swallows studied history, 1920 would have been an important date for
Eve and Petro. It was the one hundredth anniversary of the year when a
man named Long visited cliff swallows among the Rocky Mountains.

The century be