s long, and plunges through and over a dozen
waves, like a dolphin, before he can stop. But where the lake is
small, and he cannot come down that way, he has a dizzy time of it.

Once, on a little lake in September, I used to watch for hours to get
a sight of the process. Twelve or fifteen loons were gathered there,
holding high carnival. They called down every migrating loon that
passed that way; their numbers increased daily. Twilight was the
favorite time for arriving. In the stillness I would hear Hukweem far
away, so high that he was only a voice. Presently I would see him
whirling over the lake in a great circle.--"Come down, O come down,"
cry all the loons. "I'm afraid, _ooo-ho-ho-ho-ho-hoooo-eee_, I'm
afraid," says Hukweem, who is perhaps a little loon, all the way from
Labrador on his first migration, and has never come down from a height
before. "Come on, O come _oh-ho-ho-ho-ho-hon_. It won't hurt you; we
did it; come on," cry all the loons.

Then Hukweem would slide lower with each circle, whirling round and
round the lake in a great spiral, yelling all the time, and all the
loons answering. When low enough, he would set his wings and plunge
like a catapult at the very midst of the assembly, which scattered
wildly, yelling like schoolboys--"Look out! he'll break his neck;
he'll hit you; he'll break your back if he hits you."--So they
splashed away in a desperate fright, each one looking back over his
shoulder to see Hukweem come down, which he would do at a terrific
pace, striking the water with a mighty splash, and shooting half
across the lake in a smother of white, before he could get his legs
under him and turn around. Then all the loons would gather round him,
cackling, shrieking, laughing, with such a din as the little loon
never heard in his life before; and he would go off in the midst of
them, telling them, no doubt, what a mighty thing it was to come down
from so high and not break his neck.

A little later in the fall I saw those same loons do an astonishing
thing. For several evenings they had been keeping up an unusual racket
in a quiet bay, out of sight of my camp. I asked Simmo what he thought
they were doing.--"O, I don' know, playin' game, I guess, jus' like
one boy. Hukweem do dat sometime, wen he not hungry," said Simmo,
going on with his bean-cooking. That excited my curiosity; but when I
reached the bay it was too dark to see what they were playing.

One evening, when I was fishing at