the
brink of the creek and posed. I doubt if a frog or a minnow could have
told he was a thing of life. Stiff as a stub, every muscle taut, all
alert, he stood, till--flash! and the long pointed bill pinned a perch, a
foot and a half beneath the water. He had quite made out a breakfast,
when, stepping upon a tall tussock, he stood face to face with me--a human
spectator! It was only for a moment that I could keep motionless enough to
puzzle him. Some muscle must have twitched, for he understood and leaped
into the air with a croak of mortal fright.

II

The creek was roped off by the sagging fox grape-vines, and barred, from
this point on, by the alders, so that I gave up all attempt at farther
ascent. I had already given up the mink; yet I waited under the beeches.

It was blazing overhead, growing hotter and closer all the time, with
hardly breeze enough to disturb the sleep of the leaf shadows on the
sleepy stream. A rusty, red-bellied water-snake, in a mat of briers near
by, relaxed and straightened slowly out,--and softly, that I might not be
attracted,--stretching himself to the warmth. I could have broken his back
with my paddle, and perhaps, by so doing, saved the nestlings of a pair of
Maryland yellowthroats fidgeting about near him. He had eaten many a young
bird of these bushes, I was sure--yet only circumstantially sure. Catching
him in the act of robbing a nest would have been different; I should have
felt justified then in despatching him. But to strike him asleep in the
sun simply because he was a snake would have robbed the spot of part of
its life and spirit and robbed me of serenity for the rest of the day. I
should not have been, able to enjoy the quiet again until I had said my
prayers and slept.

And as between the hawks and other wild birds, we need not interfere.
While the water-snake was spreading himself, a small hawk, a
sharp-shinned, I think, came beating over the meadow and was met by a
vigilance committee of red-shouldered blackbirds. He did not stop to eat
any of them, but darted up, and they after him. On up he went, round and
round in a rapid, mounting spiral, till only one of the daring redwings
followed. I watched. Up they went, higher than I had ever seen a blackbird
venture before. And against such unequal odds! But the hawk was scared and
had not stopped to look back. He circled; the blackbird cut across inside
and caught him on almost every round. And still higher in pure brava