rilous
journey over the foot of water that separated him from his papa plainly
entered his head. He hurried back and forth on the brink with growing
agitation, and was seemingly about to plunge in, when the singer again
entered the water, brought up another morsel, and then stood on the
ledge beside the eager youngling, "dipping" occasionally himself, and
showing every time he winked--as did the little one, also--snowy-white
eyelids, in strange contrast to the dark slate-colored plumage.

This aesthetic manner of discharging family duties, alternating food for
the body with rapture of the soul, continued for some time, probably
until the young bird had as much as was good for him; and then supplies
were cut off by the peremptory disappearance of the purveyor, who
plunged with the brook over the edge of a rock, and was seen no more.

A little later a grown bird appeared, that I supposed at first was the
returning papa, but a few moments' observation convinced me that it was
the mother; partly because no song accompanied the work, but more
because of the entirely different manners of the new-comer. Filling the
crop of that importunate offspring of hers was, with this Quaker-dressed
dame, a serious business that left no time for rest or recreation. Two
charmed hours I sat absorbed, watching the most wonderful evolutions one
could believe possible to a creature in feathers.

At the point where this little drama was enacted, the brook rushed over
a line of pebbles stretching from bank to bank, lying at all angles and
of all sizes, from six to ten inches in diameter. Then it ran five or
six feet quietly, around smooth rocks here and there above the water,
and ended by plunging over a mass of bowlders to a lower level. The bird
began by mounting one of those slippery rounded stones, and thrusting
her head under water up to her shoulders. Holding it there a few
seconds, apparently looking for something, she then jumped in where the
turmoil was maddest, picked an object from the bottom, and, returning to
the ledge, gave it to baby.

The next moment, before I had recovered from my astonishment at this
feat of the ouzel, she ran directly up the falls (which, though not
high, were exceedingly lively), being half the time entirely under
water, and exactly as much at her ease as if no water were there; though
how she could stand in the rapid current, not to speak of walking
straight up against it, I could not understand.

Often