Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/492

478 grass it progressed satisfactorily, though only for a short distance. This pleased the old birds, for one of them came to the plucky little fellow, and, with one wing extended, patted the young bird on the head and back most tenderly. At this I laughed aloud, most unfortunately, and immediately the old birds flew to the nesting-tree, and then discovered my hiding-place. Of all the scoldings I ever got, that from the owls, this evening, was the severest. As I moved away I recalled the oft-witnessed scene of the king-birds worrying crows. It was the same thing in my case. Keeping just out of reach of my cane, they swooped about my head and snapped their bills viciously. They did not dare to strike me, but they came unpleasantly near, and it was with a feeling of comfort that I finally reached safer quarters.

A chance conversation discovered to me one companion of many of my walks. When a mere boy, Uz Gaunt lived in this neighborhood, having a little cottage adjoining my grandfather's woods, and he, above all others, gave me my first lesson in practical zoölogy. Of the stories which he would tell when he was in the humor, the following talk about turtles is a specimen:

"Christmas of '77 was a green one, you may remember," remarked Uz, as he shook the ashes from his pipe. "It didn't need any hickory logs blazin' on the hearth, such as these," and he stirred the ashes and rearranged the wood on the andirons as he spoke of them. "The weather had been mild for a long time, and once I heard frogs singin'. Well, this kind of thing sort of came to a focus on Christmas-day, which was warm even in the shade. The river was low, the meadows dry, and the crows as noisy as in April. I felt sort of restless-like, and took a walk in the meadows. I left my gun home, and thought I'd just look 'round. Without thinking of them when I started out, I wandered over to your marshy meadow, and began pokin' about with my cane for snappers. You know I take kindly to a bowl of snapper-soup of my own fixin'."

"Yes, I do that, and can run along neck-and-neck with you, when you're the cook."

"Well, I followed the main ditch down, jumpin' from hassock to hassock, and kept probin' in the mud with my cane, when, after a bit I felt something hard at the end of my stick. It wasn't a stone or a stump, I knew at once. There was a little tremble run up the stick to my hand that told me that much—a sort of shake, as though you hit an empty barrel, as near as I can tell you. I'd a turtle down in the mud, and concluded to bring it out into the daylight. There's more than one way to do this, but none of 'em is an easy job to get through with. I kept probin' 'round him, to try and make out where his head was, and then I could feel for his tail, and pull him out. Now this does very well for one of your common snappers, but didn't work so easy in this case. I could sort of feel that turtle all over the meadow.