dly made a sharp turn, as is their custom. After that they
brought most of the earth out in their beaks. While one worked, the
other watched or fished at the minnow pool, so that there was steady
progress as long as I observed them.

For years I had regarded Koskomenos, as the birds and the rest of the
world regard him, as a noisy, half-diabolical creature, between bird and
lizard, whom one must pass by with suspicion. But that affair with the
mink changed my feelings a bit. Koskomenos' mate might lay her eggs like
a reptile, but she could defend them like any bird hero. So I took to
watching more carefully; which is the only way to get acquainted.

The first thing I noticed about the birds--an observation confirmed
later on many waters--was that each pair of kingfishers have their own
particular pools, over which they exercise unquestioned lordship. There
may be a dozen pairs of birds on a single stream; but, so far as I have
been able to observe, each family has a certain stretch of water on
which no other kingfishers are allowed to fish. They may pass up and
down freely, but they never stop at the minnow pools; they are caught
watching near them, they are promptly driven out by the rightful owners.

The same thing is true on the lake shores. Whether there is some secret
understanding and partition among them, or whether (which is more
likely) their right consists in discovery or first arrival, there is no
means of knowing.

A curious thing, in this connection, is that while a kingfisher will
allow none of his kind to poach on his preserves, he lives at peace with
the brood of sheldrakes that occupy the same stretch of river. And the
sheldrake eats a dozen fish to his one. The same thing is noticeable
among the sheldrakes also, namely, that each pair, or rather each mother
and her brood, have their own piece of lake or river on which no others
are allowed to fish. The male sheldrakes meanwhile are far away, fishing
on their own waters.

I had not half settled this matter of the division of trout streams when
another observation came, which was utterly unexpected. Koskomenos, half
reptile though he seem, not only recognizes riparian rights, but he is
also capable of friendship--and that, too, for a moody prowler of the
wilderness whom no one else cares anything about. Here is the proof.

I was out in my canoe alone looking for a loon's nest, one midsummer
day, when the fresh trail of a bull caribou drew me to shor