the mother bird, stealing along
up stream under the fringe of bushes. The young followed in single
file. There was no splashing of water now. Shadows were not more
noiseless.

Twice since then I have seen them do the same thing. I have no doubt
they returned that evening all the way up to the feeding grounds where
we first started them; for like the kingfishers every bird seems to
have his own piece of the stream. He never fishes in his neighbor's
pools, nor will he suffer any poaching in his own. On the Restigouche
we found a brood every few miles; on other rivers less plentifully
stocked with trout they are less numerous. On lakes there is often a
brood at either end; but though I have watched them carefully, I have
never seen them cross to each other's fishing grounds.

Once, up on the Big Toledi, I saw a curious bit of their education. I
was paddling across the lake one day, when I saw a shellbird lead her
brood into a little bay where I knew the water was shallow; and
immediately they began dipping, though very awkwardly. They were
evidently taking their first lessons in diving. The next afternoon I
was near the same place. I had done fishing--or rather, frogging--and
had pushed the canoe into some tall grass out of sight, and was
sitting there just doing nothing.

A musquash came by, and rubbed his nose against the canoe, and nibbled
a lily root before he noticed me. A shoal of minnows were playing
among the grasses near by. A dragon-fly stood on his head against a
reed--a most difficult feat, I should think. He was trying some
contortion that I couldn't make out, when a deer stepped down the
bank and never saw me. Doing nothing pays one under such
circumstances, if only by the glimpses it gives of animal life. It is
so rare to see a wild thing unconscious.

Then Kwaseekho came into the shallow bay again with her brood, and
immediately they began dipping as before. I wondered how the mother
made them dive, till I looked through the field-glass and saw that the
little fellows occasionally brought up something to eat. But there
certainly were no fish to be caught in that warm, shallow water. An
idea struck me, and I pushed the canoe out of the grass, sending the
brood across the lake in wild confusion. There on the black bottom
were a dozen young trout, all freshly caught, and all with the
air-bladder punctured by the mother bird's sharp bill. She had
provided their dinner, but she brought it to a good place a