aight up from the water, looking directly at me. So still were they
that one could easily have mistaken them for stumps or peat bogs.
After a few minutes of this kind of watching they seemed satisfied,
and glided back, a few at a time, into the grass.

When all were gone I rolled down the hill and gained the run, getting
soaking wet as I splashed into it. Then it was easier to advance
without being discovered; for whenever a duck came out to look
round--which happened almost every minute at first--I could drop into
the grass and be out of sight.

In half an hour I had gained the edge of a low bank, well covered by
coarse water-grass. Carefully pushing this aside, I looked through,
and almost held my breath, they were so near. Just below me, within
six feet, was a big drake, with head drawn down so close to his body
that I wondered what he had done with his neck. His eyes were closed;
he was fast asleep. In front of him were eight or ten more ducks close
together, all with heads under their wings. Scattered about in the
grass everywhere were small groups, sleeping, or pluming their glossy
dark feathers.

Beside the pleasure of watching them, the first black ducks that I had
ever seen unconscious, there was the satisfaction of thinking how
completely they had been outwitted at their own game of sharp
watching. How they would have jumped had they only known what was
lying there in the grass so near their hiding place! At first, every
time I saw a pair of little black eyes wink, or a head come from under
a wing, I felt myself shrinking close together in the thought that I
was discovered; but that wore off after a time, when I found that the
eyes winked rather sleepily, and the necks were taken out just to
stretch them, much as one would take a comfortable yawn.

[Illustration]

Once I was caught squarely, but the grass and my being so near saved
me. I had raised my head and lay with chin in my hands, deeply
interested in watching a young duck making a most elaborate toilet,
when from the other side an old bird shot suddenly into the open water
and saw me as I dropped out of sight. There was a low, sharp quack
which brought every duck out of his hiding, wide awake on the instant.
At first they all bunched together at the farther side, looking
straight at the bank where I lay. Probably they saw my feet, which
were outside the covert as I lay full length. Then they drew gradually
nearer till they were again within the fr