shing was good. All summer long
they roam and gad about, free from care, and happy as summer campers,
leaving mother birds meanwhile to feed and educate their offspring.
Once only have I seen a drake sharing the responsibilities of his
family. I watched three days to find the cause of his devotion; but he
disappeared the third evening, and I never saw him again. Whether the
drakes are lazy and run away, or whether they have the atrocious habit
of many male birds and animals of destroying their young, and so are
driven away by the females, I have not been able to find out.

These birds are very destructive on the trout streams; if a summer
camper spare them, it is because of his interest in the young, and
especially because of the mother bird's devotion. When the recreant
drake is met with, however, he goes promptly onto the bill of fare,
with other good things.

Occasionally one overtakes a brood on a rapid river. Then the poor
birds are distressed indeed. At the first glimpse of the canoe they
are off, churning the water into foam in their flight. Not till they
are out of sight round the bend do they hear the cluck that tells them
to hide. Some are slow in finding a hiding place on the strange
waters. The mother bird hurries them. They are hunting in frantic
haste when round the bend comes the swift-gliding canoe. With a note
of alarm they are all off again, for she will not leave even the
weakest alone. Again they double the bend and try to hide; again the
canoe overtakes them; and so on, mile after mile, till a stream or
bogan flowing into the river offers a road to escape. Then, like a
flash, the little ones run in under shelter of the banks, and glide up
stream noiselessly, while mother bird flutters on down the river just
ahead of the canoe. Having lured it away to a safe distance, as she
thinks, she takes wing and returns to the young.

Their powers of endurance are remarkable. Once, on the Restigouche, we
started a brood of little ones late in the afternoon. We were moving
along in a good current, looking for a camping ground, and had little
thought for the birds, which could never get far enough ahead to hide
securely. For five miles they kept ahead of us, rushing out at each
successive stretch of water, and fairly distancing us in a straight
run. When we camped they were still below us. At dusk I was sitting
motionless near the river when a slight movement over near the
opposite bank attracted me. There was