the inlet, the racket was different
from any I had heard before. There would be an interval of perfect
silence, broken suddenly by wild yelling; then the ordinary loon talk
for a few minutes, and another silence, broken by a shriller outcry.
That meant that something unusual was going on, so I left the trout,
to find out about it.

When I pushed my canoe through the fringe of water-grass on the point
nearest the loons, they were scattered in a long line, twelve or
fifteen of them, extending from the head of the bay to a point nearly
opposite me. At the other end of the line two loons were swimming
about, doing something which I could not make out. Suddenly the loon
talk ceased. There may have been a signal given, which I did not hear.
Anyway, the two loons faced about at the same moment and came tearing
down the line, using wings and feet to help in the race. The upper
loons swung in behind them as they passed, so as to watch the finish
better; but not a sound was heard till they passed my end of the line
in a close, hard race, one scarcely a yard ahead of the other, when
such a yelling began as I never heard before. All the loons gathered
about the two swimmers; there was much cackling and crying, which grew
gradually quieter; then they began to string out in another long line,
and two more racers took their places at one end of it. By that time
it was almost dark, and I broke up the race trying to get nearer in my
canoe so as to watch things better. Twice since then I have heard
from summer campers of their having seen loons racing across a lake. I
have no doubt it is a frequent pastime with the birds when the summer
cares for the young are ended, and autumn days are mellow, and fish
are plenty, and there are long hours just for fun together, before
Hukweem moves southward for the hard solitary winter life on the
seacoast.

Of all the loons that cried out to me in the night, or shared the
summer lakes with me, only one ever gave me the opportunity of
watching at close quarters. It was on a very wild lake, so wild that
no one had ever visited it before in summer, and a mother loon felt
safe in leaving the open shore, where she generally nests, and placing
her eggs on a bog at the head of a narrow bay. I found them there a
day or two after my arrival.

I used to go at all hours of the day, hoping the mother would get used
to me and my canoe, so that I could watch her later, teaching her
little ones; but her wildnes