Page:Bird-lore Vol 01.djvu/55

  Those of you who are familiar with the Adirondack or Canada lakes can easily picture the surroundings of this nest, which I found in Higley Lake, Canada. This is a small body of water, hardly more than a very large pond. This section of Canada may be called a lake region, and is very beautiful. Most of the lakes are surrounded with forests, in which the contrasting colors of the evergreens and white birches add greatly to the natural beauty of the scenery. This nest was built in very shallow water, about eight feet from the shore. It was. at its base, about twenty inches in diameter, and at its apex about fifteen inches wide. It was about nine inches above the water at its greatest height, and composed entirely of mud, so far as I could determine, of a very dark color. The water where it was placed was not over six or eight inches deep, but it was really a very hard matter to determine exactly where the water ended and the mud commenced. This I acertained to my sorrow and discomfiture when I undertook to set up my tripod. Standing in a very round-bottomed boat and trying to plant a tripod in silt of seemingly unfathomable depth is no easy job, as I found out. Finally, however, I succeeded in getting what I now have the pleasure of showing you: but I dare not tell you of the beautiful failures I made before this picture was obtained. When I first discovered the nest, the Loon was upon it, but as soon as she saw me she slid off into the lake and made every effort to dive. It is true that her head was under the water, but her back was not until she had gone some feet from the nest out into the lake, where the water was deep enough to entirely cover her. She did not then appear until she was well across the pond, where she was joined by her mate. The nest contained only one egg when I first saw it : but in the water, on the lake side of the nest, I found another egg, which the mother bird had evidently rolled out of the nest, perhaps in her fright and hasty departure when she first saw me. This egg I replaced in the nest by lifting it with the broad end of the boat oar. thinking, perhaps, that handling it might cause the Loon to desert the nest. The egg that was in the water was many shades lighter in color than the one found in the nest, which leads me to believe that the eggs of birds that habitually breed in damp mud nests acquire a darker color from stains. In another pond of about the same size, and within half a mile of Higley Lake, I subsequently saw a pair of Loons that had but one young, so far as I could ascertain. If there was another it was kept well hidden. I was very much interested in watching the methods by which the old birds kept the little fellow out of 