times they even lost sight of each other for a little while, as one
dived in search of a herring or a young salmon trout. I wish we could
have followed Mahng down under the water and watched him at his hunting.
He didn't dive as you do, with a jump and a plunge and a splash. He
merely drew his head back a little and then thrust it forward and
downward, and went under as simply and easily as you would step out of
bed, and with a good deal more dignity. It was his feet that did it, of
course. They were not good for much for walking, but they were the real
thing when it came to swimming or diving. They were large and broad and
strongly webbed, and the short stout legs which carried them were
flattened and compressed that they might slip edgewise through the
water, like a feathered oar-blade. The muscles which worked them were
very powerful, and they kicked backward with so much vigor that two
little jets of spray were often tossed up in his wake as he went under,
like the splash from a steamer's paddles. And he had a rudder, too, for
in the after part of his body there were two muscles just like
tiller-ropes, fastened to his tail in such a way that they could twist
it to either side, and steer him to port or starboard as occasion
demanded. With his long neck stretched far out in front, his wings
pressed tightly against his sides, and his legs and feet working as
if they went by steam, he shot through the water like a submarine
torpedo-boat. "The Herdsman of the Deep," the Scottish Highlanders used
to say, when in winter a loon came to visit their lochs and fiords.
Swift and strong and terrible, he ranged the depths of the Glimmerglass,
seeking what he might devour; and perhaps you can imagine how hastily
the poor little fishes took their departure whenever they saw him coming
their way. Sometimes they were not quite quick enough, and then his long
bill closed upon them, and he swallowed them whole without even waiting
to rise to the surface.
The chase thus brought to a successful conclusion, or perhaps the supply
of air in his lungs giving out, he returned to the upper world, and
again his voice rang out through the darkness and the falling snow. Then
his wife would answer him from somewhere away off across the lake, and
they would call back and forth to each other with many a laugh and
shout, or, drawing closer and closer together, they would cruise the
Glimmerglass side by side, with the big flakes dropping gently on their
backs and folded wings, and the ripples spreading out on either hand
like the swell from the bow of a ship.
Once Mahng stayed down a little longer than usual, and when he came up
he heard his wife calling him in an excited tone, as if something had
happened to her. He hurried toward her, and presently he saw a light
shining dimly through the throng of moving snow-flakes, and growing
brighter and brighter as he approached until it was fairly dazzling. As
he drew nearer still he caught sight of his wife sitting on the water
squarely in front of that light, and watching it with all her eyes. She
was not calling now. She had forgotten Mahng, she had forgotten to
paddle, she had forgotten everything, in her wonder at this strange,
beautiful thing, the like of which had never before been seen upon the
Glimmerglass. She herself was a rarely beautiful sight--if she had only
known it--with the dark water rippling gently against her bosom, her big
black head thrust forward, and the feathers of her throat and breast
glistening in the glare of the headlight, white as the snow that was
falling around her.
All this Mahng saw. What he did not see, because his eyes were dazzled,
was a boat in the shadow behind the light, and a rifle-barrel pointing
straight at his wife's breast. There was a blinding flash, a sharp,
crashing report, and a cloud of smoke; and Mahng dived as quick as a
wink. But his wife would never dive again. The bullet had gone tearing
through her body, and she lay stretched out on the water, perfectly
motionless, and apparently dead. And then, just as Mahng came to the
surface a hundred yards away, and just as my partner put out his hand to
pick her up, she lifted her head and gave a last wild cry. Mahng heard
it and answered, but he was too far away to see what happened. He dared
not return till the light had disappeared, and by that time she was
gone. She had straggled violently for a moment, and had struck savagely
at the hunter's hand, and then she had as suddenly collapsed, the water
turned red, and her eyes closed forever. Did you know that among all
God's creatures the birds are the only ones whose eyes close naturally
in death? Even among men it is not so, for when our friends die we lay
our hands reverently upon their faces, and weight their stiff lids with
gold. But for the bird, Nature herself performs the last kindly office,
and as the light fades out from the empty windows of the soul, the
curtain falls of its own accord.
[Illustration: "_She herself was a rarely beautiful sight._"]
During the next two or three days Mahng's voice was frequently to be
heard, apparently calling his wife. Sometimes it was a mournful,
long-drawn cry--"Hoo-WOOOO-ooo"--that might have been heard a mile
away--a cry that seemed the very essence of loneliness, and that went
right down where you lived and made you feel like a murderer. And
sometimes he broke into a wild peal of laughter, as if he hoped that
that might better serve to call her back to him.
His children had gone south some time before. They had seemed anxious to
see the world. Perhaps, too, they had dreaded the approach of colder
weather more than the older birds, who had become somewhat seasoned by
previous autumns. Anyhow, they had taken the long trail toward the Gulf
of Mexico, and now that his wife was gone Mahng was entirely alone. At
last he seemed to make up his mind that he might as well follow them,
and one afternoon, as he was swimming aimlessly about, I saw him
suddenly dash forward, working his wings with all their might, beating
the water at every stroke, and throwing spray like a side-wheeler.
Slowly--for his body was heavy, and his wings were rather small for his
size--slowly he lifted himself from the water, all the time rushing
forward faster and faster. He couldn't have made it if he hadn't had
plenty of sea-room, but by swinging round and round in long, wide
circles he managed to rise little by little till at last he was clear of
the tree-tops. He passed right over my head as he stood away to the
south--his long neck stretched far out in front, his feet pointing
straight back beyond the end of his short tail, and his wings beating
the air with tremendous energy. How they did whizz! He made almost as
much noise as a train of cars. He laughed as he went by, and you would
have said that he was in high spirits; but before he disappeared that
lonely, long-drawn cry came back once more--"Hoo-WOOOO-ooo."
In the course of his winter wanderings through the South he happened to
alight one day on a certain wild pond down in Mississippi, and there he
found another loon--a widow whose former husband had lost his life the
previous summer under rather peculiar circumstances.
Beside a small lake in Minnesota there lives an old Dutchman who catches
fish with empty bottles. On any calm, still day you may see a lot of
them floating upright in the water, all tightly corked, and each with
the end of a fishing-line tied around its neck. They seem very decorous
and well-behaved, but let a fish take one of the hooks and begin to
pull, and immediately that particular bottle turns wrong end up, and
acts as if it had taken a drop too much of its own original contents.
Then the Dutchman paddles out in his little scow, and perhaps by the
time he has hauled in his fish and re-baited the hook another bottle is
excitedly standing on its head. But never before nor since have any of
them behaved as wildly as the one that a loon got hold of.
The loon--not Mahng, you understand, but the first husband of his new
acquaintance--had dived in search of his dinner, and the first thing he
saw that looked as if it might be good to eat was the bait on one of the
Dutchman's hooks. He swallowed it, of course, and for the next five
minutes he went charging up and down that pond at a great rate, followed
by a green glass monster with the name of a millionnaire brewer blown in
its side. Sometimes he was on the surface, and sometimes he was under
it; but wherever he went that horrible thing was close behind him,
pulling so hard that the sharp cord cut the corners of his mouth till it
bled. Once or twice he tried to fly, but the line caught his wing and
brought him down again. When he dived, it tangled itself around his legs
and clogged the machinery; and when he tried to shout, the hook in his
throat would not let him do anything more than cough. The Dutchman got
him at last, and eventually Mahng got his widow, as you shall see.
She had her children to take care of, and for a time she was very busy,
but after a few weeks they flew away to the south, as Mahng's had done,
and she was free to go where she liked and do what she pleased. For a
while she stayed where she was, like a sensible person. Minnesota suited
her very well, and she was in no hurry to leave. But, of course, she
could not stay on indefinitely, for some frosty night the lake would
freeze over, and then she could neither dive for fish nor rise upon the
wing. A loon on ice is about as helpless as an oyster. And so at last
she, too, went south. She travelled by easy stages, and had a pleasant
journey, with many a stop, and many a feast in the lakes and rivers
along the route. I should like to know, just out of curiosity, how many
fish found their way down her capacious gullet during that pilgrimage
through Illinois and Kentucky and Tennessee.
Well, no matter about that. The Mississippi pond was in sight, and she
was just slanting down toward the water, when a hunter fired at her from
behind a clump of trees. His aim was all too true, and she fell headlong
to the ground, with a broken wing dangling helplessly at her side.
Now, as you probably know, a loon isn't built for running. There is an
old story, one which certainly has the appearance of truth, to the
effect that when Nature manufactured the first of these birds she forgot
to give him any legs at all, and that he had started off on the wing
before she noticed her mistake. Then she picked up the first pair that
came to hand and threw them after him. Unfortunately they were a misfit,
and, what was, perhaps, still worse, they struck his body in the wrong
place. They were so very short and so very far aft that, although he
could stand nearly as straight as a man, it was almost impossible for
him to move about on them. When he had to travel on land, which he
always avoided as far as he could, he generally shoved himself along on
his breast, and often used his wings and his bill to help himself
forward. All his descendants are just like him, so you can see that the
widow's chances were pretty small, with the hunter bursting out of the
bushes, and a broad strip of beach between her and the friendly pond.
But she was a person of resource and energy, and in this great emergency
she literally rose to the occasion, and did something that she had
never done before in all her life, and probably will never do again. The
astonished hunter saw her lift herself until she stood nearly upright,
and then actually _run_ across the beach toward the water. She was
leaning forward a trifle, her long neck was stretched out, her two short
legs were trotting as fast as they could go, and her one good wing was
wildly waving in a frantic endeavor to get on. It was a sight that very
few people have ever seen, and it would have been comical if it hadn't
been a matter of life and death. The hunter was hard after her, and his
legs were a yard long, while hers were only a few inches, so it was not
surprising that he caught her just as she reached the margin. She
wriggled out of his grasp and dashed on through the shallow water, and
he followed close behind. In a moment he stooped and made another grab
at her, and this time he got his arms around her body and pinned her
wings down against her sides. But he had waded out a little too far, and
had reached the place where the bottom suddenly shelves off from fifteen
inches to seventy-two. His foot slipped, and in another moment he was
splashing wildly about in the water, and the loon was free.
A broken wing is not necessarily as serious a matter as you might
suppose. The cold water kept the inflammation down, and it seemed as if
all the vital forces of her strong, healthy body set to work at once to
repair the damage. If any comparative anatomist ever gets hold of the
widow and dissects her, he will find a curious swelling in the principal
bone of her left wing, like a plumber's join in a lead pipe, and he will
know what it means. It is the place where Nature soldered the broken
pieces together. And it was while Nature was engaged in this soldering
operation that Mahng arrived and began to cultivate the widow's
acquaintance.
"_In the spring a fuller crimson
comes upon the robin's breast,_"
and in the spring the loon puts on his wedding-garment, and his fancy,
like the young man's, "lightly turns to thoughts of love."
But speaking of Mahng's wedding-garment reminds me that I haven't told
you about his winter dress. His back and wings were very dark-brown, and
his breast and under-parts were white. His head and the upper portion of
his neck were black; his bill was black, or blackish, and so were his
feet. His coat was very thick and warm, and his legs were feathered
right down to the heel-joint. More than five feet his wings stretched
from tip to tip, and he weighed at least twelve pounds, and would be
still larger before he died.
As to his nuptial finery, its groundwork was much the same, but its
trimmings were different and were very elegant. White spots appeared all
over his back and the upper surfaces of his wings, some of them round,
and some square. They were not thrown on carelessly, but were arranged
in gracefully curving lines, and they quite changed his appearance,
especially if one were as near him as one is supposed to be during a
courting. His spring neckwear, too, was in exceedingly good taste, for
he put on a sort of collar of very narrow vertical stripes, contrasting
beautifully with the black around and between them. Higher up on his
neck and head the deep black feathers gleamed and shone in the sunlight
with brilliant irridescent tints of green and violet. He was a very
handsome bird.
And now everything was going north. The sun was going north, the wind
was going north, the birds were going, and summer herself was sweeping
up from the tropics as fast as ever she could travel. Mahng was getting
very restless. A dozen times a day he would spread his wings and beat
the air furiously, dashing the spray in every direction, and almost
lifting his heavy body out of the water. But the time was not yet come,
and presently he would fold his pinions and go back to his courting.
Do you think he was very inconstant? Do you blame him for not being more
faithful to the memory of the bird who was shot at his side only a few
months before? Don't be too hard on him. What can a loon do when the
springtime calls and the wind blows fresh and strong, when the new
strong wine of life is coursing madly through his veins, and when his
dreams are all of the vernal flight to the lonely northland, where the
water is cold and the fish are good, and where there are such delightful
nesting-places around the marshy ponds?
But how did his new friend feel about it? Would she go with him? Ah!
Wouldn't she? Had not she, too, put on a wedding-garment just like his?
And what was she there for, anyhow, if not to be wooed, and to find a
mate, and to fly away with him a thousand miles to the north, and there,
beside some lonely little lake, brood over her eggs and her young? Her
wing was gaining strength all the time, and at last she was ready. You
should have heard them laugh when the great day came and they pulled out
for Michigan--Mahng a little in the lead, as became the larger and
stronger, and his new wife close behind. There had been nearly a week of
cooler weather just before the start, which had delayed them a little,
but now the south wind was blowing again, and over and over it seemed to
say,
"_And we go, go, go away from here!
On the other side the world we're overdue!
'Send the road lies clear before you
When the old Spring-fret comes o'er you,
And the Red Gods call for you._"
And the road was clear, and they went. Up, and up, and up; higher and
higher, till straight ahead, stretching away to the very edge of the
world, lay league after league of sunshine and air, only waiting the
stroke of their wings. Now steady, steady! Beat, beat, beat! And the old
earth sliding southward fifty miles an hour! No soaring--their wings
were too short for that sort of work--and no quick wheeling to right or
left, but hurtling on with whizzing pinions and eager eyes, straight
toward the goal. Was it any wonder that they were happy, and that
joyful shouts and wild peals of laughter came ringing down from the sky
to tell us poor earthbound men and women that somewhere up in the blue,
beyond the reach of our short-sighted eyes, the loons were hurrying
home?
[Illustration: "_The old earth sliding southward fifty miles an hour._"]
Over the fresh fields, green with the young wheat; over the winding
rivers and the smiling lakes; over the--shut your eyes, and dream a
little while, and see if you can imagine what it was like. Does it make
you wish you were a loon yourself? Never mind; some day, perhaps, we too
shall take our wedding-journeys in the air; not on feathered pinions,
but with throbbing engines and whizzing wheels, and with all the power
of steam or electricity to lift us and bear us onward. We shall skim the
prairies and leap the mountains, and roam over the ocean like the
wandering albatross. To-day we shall breathe the warm, spicy breath of
the tropic islands, and to-morrow we shall sight the white gleam of the
polar ice-pack. When the storm gathers we shall mount above it, and
looking down we shall see the lightning leap from cloud to cloud, and
the rattling thunder will come upward, not downward, to our ears. When
the world below is steeped in the shadows of coming night, we shall
still watch the sunset trailing its glories over the western woods
and mountains; and when morning breaks we shall be the first to welcome
the sunrise as it comes rushing up from the east a thousand miles an
hour. The wind of the upper heavens will be pure and keen and strong,
and not even a sleigh-ride on a winter's night can set the live blood
dancing as it will dance and tingle up there above the clouds. And
riding on the air, alone with the roaring engines that have become for
the time a part of ourselves, we shall know at last what our earth is
really like, for we shall see it as the loons see it--yes, as God and
His angels see it--this old earth, on which we have lived for so many
thousand years, and yet have never seen.
But, after all, the upper heavens will not be home; and some day, as we
shoot northward, or southward, or eastward, or westward, we shall see
beneath us the spot that is to be for us the best and dearest place in
all the world, and dropping down out of the blue we shall find something
that is even better than riding on the wings of the wind. That was what
happened to Mahng and his wife, for one spring evening, as they came
rushing over the pine-tops and the maples and birches, they saw the
Glimmerglass just ahead. The water lay like polished steel in the fading
light, and the brown ranks of the still leafless trees stood dark and
silent around the shores. It was very quiet, and very, very lonely; and
the lake and the woods seemed waiting and watching for something. And
into that stillness and silence the loons came with shouting and
laughter, sweeping down on a long slant, and hitting the water with a
splash. The echoes awoke and the Glimmerglass was alive, and summer had
come to the northland.
They chose a place where the shore was low and marshy, and there, only
two or three yards from the water's edge, they built a rude nest of
grass and weeds and lily-pads. Two large greenish eggs, blotched with
dark-brown, lay in its hollow; and the wife sat upon them week after
week, and covered them with the warm feathers of her broad, white
breast. Once in a while she left them long enough to stretch her wings
in a short flight, or to dive in search of a fish, but she was never
gone very long. It was a weary vigil that she kept, but she sat there in
daylight and darkness, through sunshine and storm, till at last the day
came when there were four loons instead of two at the Glimmerglass.
The chicks were very smart and active, and they took to the water almost
as soon as they were out of the shell, swimming and diving as if they
had been accustomed to it for weeks instead of hours. In some ways,
however, they required a good deal of care. For one thing, their little
stomachs were not quite equal to the task of assimilating raw fish, and
the parents had to swallow all their food for them, keep it down till it
was partly digested, and then pass it up again to the hungry children.
It made a good deal of delay, and it must have been very unpleasant, but
it seemed to be the only practicable way of dealing with the situation.
I am glad to say that it did not last very long, for by the time they
were two weeks old the young loons were able to take their fish and
reptiles and insects at first hand.
When they first arrived the chicks were covered all over with stiff
down, of a dark, sooty gray on their backs, and white underneath. But
this did not last long, either. The first feathers soon appeared, and
multiplied rapidly. I can't say that the young birds were particularly
handsome, for even when their plumage was complete it was much quieter
and duller of hue than their parents'. But they were fat and plump, and
I think they thoroughly enjoyed life, especially before they discovered
that there were enemies as well as friends in the world. That was a kind
of knowledge that could not be avoided very long, however. They soon
learned that men, and certain other animals such as hawks and skunks,
were to be carefully shunned; and you should have seen them run on the
water whenever a suspicious-looking character hove in sight. Their wings
were not yet large enough for flying, but they flapped them with all
their might, and scampered across the Glimmerglass so fast that their
little legs fairly twinkled, and they actually left a furrow in the
water behind them. But the bottom of the lake was really the safest
refuge, and if a boat or a canoe pressed them too closely they would
usually dive below the surface, while the older birds tried to lure the
enemy off in some other direction by calling and shouting and making all
sorts of demonstrations.
Generally these tactics were successful, but not always. Once some boys
cornered the whole family in a small, shallow bay, where the water was
not deep enough for diving; and before they could escape one of the
youngsters was driven up onto the beach. He tried to hide behind a log,
but he was captured and earned off, and I wish I had time to tell you
of all the things that happened to him before he was finally killed and
eaten by a dog. It was pretty tough on the old birds, as well as on him,
but they still had one chick left, and you can't expect to raise _all_
your children as long as bigger people are so fond of kidnapping and
killing them.
Not all the people who came to see them were bent on mischief, however.
There was a party of girls and boys, for instance, who camped beside the
Glimmerglass for a few weeks, and who liked to follow them around the
lake in a row-boat and imitate their voices, just for the fun of making
them talk back. One girl in particular became so accomplished in the
loon language that Mahng would often get very much excited as he
conversed with her, and would sometimes let the boat creep nearer and
nearer until they were only a few rods apart. And then, all of a sudden,
he would duck his head and go under, perhaps in the very middle of a
laugh. The siren was getting a little too close. Her intentions might
possibly be all right, but it was just as well to be on the safe side.