old Romans, with all their large
experience, ever beheld so strange and grotesque a "set-to" (I'm
pretty sure none of our American boys ever did) as the writer once
stumbled upon, on the shores of one of our Northern Maine lakes--Lake
Pennesseewassee, if you can pronounce that; it trips up editors
sometimes.

I had been spending the day in the neighboring forest, hunting for a
black squirrel I had seen there the evening before, having with me a
great, red-shirted lumberman, named Ben--Ben Murch. And not finding
our squirrel, we were making our way, towards evening, down through
the thick alders which skirted the lake, to the shore, in the hope of
getting a shot at an otter, or a mink, when all at once a great sound,
a sort of _quock, quock_, accompanied by a great splashing of the
water, came to our ears.

"Hush!" ejaculated Ben, clapping his hand to his ear (as his custom
was), to catch the sound. "Hear that? Some sort of a fracas."

And cautiously pushing through the dense copse, a very singular and
comical spectacle met our eyes. For out some two or three rods from
the muddy, grassy shore stood a tall, a very tall bird,--somewhere
from four to five feet, I judged,--with long, thin, black legs, and
an awkward body, slovenly clad in dull gray-blue plumage. The neck
was as long as the legs, and the head small, and nearly bare, with a
long, yellowish bill. Standing knee deep in the muddied water, it was,
on the whole, about the most ungainly-looking fowl you can well
imagine; while on a half-buried tree trunk, running out towards it
into the water, crouched a wiry, black creature, of about average dog
size, wriggling a long, restless tail, and apparently in the very act
of springing at the long-legged biped in the water. Just now they were
eying each other very intently; but from the splashed and bedraggled
appearance of both, it was evident there had been recent hostilities,
which, judging from the attitude of the combatants, were about to be
renewed.

"Show!" exclaimed Ben, peering over my shoulder from behind. "An old
_hairn_--ain't it? Regular old _pokey_. Thought I'd heered that
_quock_ before. And that creatur'? Let's see. Odd-looking chap. Wish
he'd turn his head this way. Fisher--ain't it? Looks like one. Should
judge that's a fisher-cat. What in the world got them at loggerheads,
I wonder?"

By "hairn" Ben meant _heron_, the great blue heron of American
waters--_Ardea Herodias_ of the naturalists. And fi