Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/21

 along the deep meandering marsh creeks, brought with it incalculable hordes of shrimp and mullet. Twenty feet in front of the owl's cedar the marsh grass fell away, enclosing a bare space of sandy mud pitted with shallow holes and traversed by crooked, irregular gullies. Already the rising waters had converted this open space into a marsh-bordered pond from two inches to a foot in depth—a small tidal lagoon packed and crammed with life.

The horned owl waited and watched, his luminous eyes scanning the muddy margins where the water lapped amid the close-growing marsh blades. A flock of fifty-two snowy egrets, winging slowly toward their roosting place, dropped down to the teeming shallows, too tempting to be passed by, despite the lateness of the hour. With languid interest the big owl watched them at their fishing—slim, graceful, immaculate, striding swiftly here and there through water that covered their golden feet and four inches of their clean black legs. To right and left the long, straight javelin bills flashed downward, lifted again, jerked spasmodically in the air as the mandibles manipulated the shrimp to loosen the horny head parts, snapped shut once more, poised, aimed, flashed down upon another victim.

To Eyes o' Flame all this was of no importance; but he observed with some quickening of interest that now and then an egret leaped suddenly upward