He Would Dive Along Down
Near The Ground, Then Up With A Fine Display Of Wings And Tail To
The Next Perch Selected, There To Repeat With Fresh Variations And
Shrieks, The Same Strange Song, And Often Indeed Sang It On The
Wing, Until At Last He Crossed The River.
Sometimes we rode in the canoe, sometimes tramped along the easy
shore.
Once I came across a Great Homed Owl in the grass by the
water. He had a fish over a foot long, and flew with difficulty
when be bore it off. Another time I saw a Horned Owl mobbed by two
Wiskajons. Spruce Partridge as well as the Ruffed species became
common: one morning some of the former marched into camp at
breakfast time. Rob called them "Chickens"; farther south they are
called "Fool Hens," which is descriptive and helps to distinguish
them from their neighbours - the "Sage Hens." Frequently now we
heard the toy-trumpeting and the clack of the Pileated Woodpecker
or Cock-of-the-Pines, a Canadian rather than a Hudsonian species.
One day, at our three o'clock meal, a great splendid fellow of the
kind gave us a thrill. "Clack-clack-clack," we heard him coming,
and he bounded through the air into the trees over our camp. Still
uttering his loud "Clack-clack-clack," he swung from tree to tree
in one long festoon of flight, spread out on the up-swoop like an
enormous black butterfly with white-starred wings. "Clack-clack-clack,"
he stirred the echoes from the other shore, and ignored us as he
swooped and clanged. There was much in his song of the Woodpecker
tang; it was very nearly the springtime "cluck-cluck" of a magnified
Flicker in black; and I gazed with open mouth until he thought
fit to bound through the air to another woods. This was my first
close meeting with the King of the Woodpeckers; I long to know him
better. Mammals, too, abounded, but we saw their signs rather than
themselves, for most are nocturnal. The Redsquirrels, so scarce last
spring, were quite plentiful, and the beach at all soft places
showed abundant trace Of Weasels, Chipmunks, Foxes, Coyotes,
Lynx, Wolves, Moose, Caribou, Deer. One Wolf track was of special
interest. It was 5 1/2 inches, long and travelling with it was the
track of a small Wolf; it vividly brought back the days of Lobo
and Blanca, and I doubt not was another case of mates; we were
evidently in the range of a giant Wolf who was travelling around
with his wife. Another large Wolf track was lacking the two inner
toes of the inner hind foot, and the bind foot pads were so faint
as to be lost at times, although the toes were deeply impressed in
the mud. This probably meant that he, had been in a trap and was
starved to a skeleton.
We did not see any of these, but we did see the post-graduate
evidences of their diet, and were somewhat surprised to learn that
it included much fruit, especially of the uva-ursi.
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