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 determined and strenuous gulpings. Then he eyed the other half doubtfully, and decided that he was not yet ready for it. So, placing one foot upon it with a precise air, he lifted his head again and resumed his motionless guarding of the nest.

A little later in the morning—perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes after the incident of the snake—the mice found yet another potent reason for congratulating themselves on the presence of their expensive champion. The hen bittern, apparently, had not been very successful in her foraging. She had shown as yet no sign of returning to the nest. The male was just beginning to get impatient. He even went so far as to move his head, though ever so slightly. Indeed, he was on the very point of beginning those grotesque snappings of the bill and gulpings of air which would be followed by his booming triple call when he caught sight of a dark form moving through the grass, beyond the nest. Instantly he stiffened again into rigidity. Only, very slowly, the long, slender feathers which crowned his head and lay along his neck began to rise.

The dark form gliding stealthily among the grasses was that of an animal about two feet in length, low on the legs, slender, sinuous, quickdarting. The bittern had never chanced to observe a mink before, but he needed no one to tell