choes began to ring about his head he would get excited, sitting
up on his tail, flapping his wings, cackling and shrieking with glee
at his own performance. Every wild syllable was flung back like a shot
from the surrounding hills, till the air seemed full of loons, all
mingling their crazy cachinnations with the din of the chief
performer. The uproar made one shiver. Then Hukweem would cease
suddenly, listening intently to the warring echoes. Before the
confusion was half ended he would get excited again, and swim about in
small circles, spreading wings and tail, showing his fine feathers as
if every echo were an admiring loon, pleased as a peacock with himself
at having made such a noise in a quiet world.

There was another loon, a mother bird, on a different lake, whose two
eggs had been carried off by a thieving muskrat; but she did not know
who did it, for Musquash knows how to roll the eggs into water and
carry them off, before eating, where the mother bird will not find the
shells. She came swimming down to meet us the moment our canoe entered
the lake; and what she seemed to cry was, "Where are they? O where are
they?" She followed us across the lake, accusing us of robbery, and
asking the same question over and over.

But whatever the meaning of Hukweem's crying, it seems to constitute a
large part of his existence. Indeed, it is as a cry that he is chiefly
known--the wild, unearthly cry of the wilderness night. His education
for this begins very early. Once I was exploring the grassy shores of
a wild lake when a mother loon appeared suddenly, out in the middle,
with a great splashing and crying. I paddled out to see what was the
matter. She withdrew with a great effort, apparently, as I approached,
still crying loudly and beating the water with her wings. "Oho," I
said, "you have a nest in there somewhere, and now you are trying to
get me away from it." This was the only time I have ever known a loon
to try that old mother bird's trick. Generally they slip off the nest
while the canoe is yet half a mile away, and swim under water a long
distance, and watch you silently from the other side of the lake.

I went back and hunted awhile for the nest among the bogs of a little
bay; then left the search to investigate a strange call that sounded
continuously farther up the shore. It came from some hidden spot in
the tall grass, an eager little whistling cry, reminding me somehow of
a nest of young fish-hawks.

A