Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/161

 sides, and set herself to preening her feathers still wet from her briny plunge. The male osprey, after a glance at the prize, seemed to think it was up to him to go her one better. With a high-pitched, musical, staccato cry of Pip-pip—pip—pip—very small and childish to come from so formidable a beak—he launched himself majestically from the edge of the nest, and sailed off over the hot green tops of the spruce and fir to the lake.

Instead of soaring to his "watchtower in the blue" he flew now quite low, not more than fifty feet or so above the water; for a swarm of small flies was over the lake and the fish were rising to them freely.

In every direction he saw the little, widening rings of ripples, each of which meant a fish, large or small, feeding at the surface. His wide, alldiscerning eyes could pick and choose. Whimsically ignoring a number of tempting quarry, he winnowed slowly to the farther side of the lake; and then, pausing to hover just above the line where the water lilies ended, he dropped suddenly, struck the water with a heavy splash, half submerging himself, and rose at once, his wings beating the spray, with a big, silver chub in his claws. He had his prey gripped near the tail, so that it hung, twisting and writhing with in-