Jab., ? 1918 A RETURN TO THE DAKOTA LAKE REGION 27 saw a flocl? of gulls massed on the water at a safe distance from shore. Being struck by raucous call notes quite unlike the familiar calls of the Franklin, I walked up the beach to investigate, when I was pleased to discover a few near shore showing the characteristic dark ear spot of the attractive Bonaparte Gull. When I was down at the lake with some children, one day, a pair of long- bodied Gadwall came feeding? along the shore line. Alarmed at our intrusion, the drake, with head up, watched the movements of the children behind the thin border of trees, but the duck as if feeling safely guarded, fed calmly along the edge of the water, moving her bill back and forth over the surface as if for insects; though when the restless children ran down to the beach, both ducks moved on up the shore. The comfortable pair were seen there again, two days later, swimming companionably close together. The children were greatly interested in seeing a family of young Flickers coming to the big mouth of their nest hole, and one little fellow horrified me by asking earnestly, "Do we have to take them ?" Another Flicker family was found in the same short strip of timber, and when the large broods were out, the woods seemed full of Woodpeckers. Near here a Cuckoo slipped into the cover of a low tree top one day as I came in sight, and during the nesting sea- ?on Kingbirds flew silently away from trees, bushes, and fences, looking won- derfully white and fluffy, In the trees bordering the lake in June the Crows cawed so aggressively when I passed that but one interpretation was possible. Th'ey bored me so, however, by making an outcry when I wanted to creep up quietly to see Ducks, that I did not take a proper interest in their affairs. Near Stony Point, on the fourth of July, as I happened by, a female Gol- den-eye with puffy brown head and yellow eye was swimming near shore. When she caught sight of me, instead of swimming out farther from shore or flying to another part of the beach as other ducks did when surprised, she stood her ground, swimming slowly back and forth .along a short beat, helping to propel herself by her neck, now held erect, now slanted back. Another female joined her for a time, and once I thought I caught sight of the drake with the green head and white bill spot, swinging in by the Point. The duck was so evidently watching me that when I found a tree with a big hollow about ten feet from the ground I grew hopeful. But though I was often in the neigh- borhood, I never saw her again. Was it one of her sisters of which I was told who dropped down a chimney instead of a hollow tree much to the surprise of the housekeeper who came home to find her room full of soot and the be- wildered duck on the windowsill ? Near Stony Point, Spotted Sandpipers were often seen on the sand, tipping and teetering as the wash of the waves sounded on the beach; and one day two were seen on the rocks at the very tip of Stony Point, standing their ground when the waves washed over their feet. Between Stony Point and the small bay in its arm, when I was watching for ducks, our band of farm horses filed by me, gentle mothers with their foals. and spirited adventurous colts; each in turn stopping to enquire about me or to have their noses rubbed, and then wading out into the cane border of the lake, their feet sucking up the deep mud as they moved around nibbling cane. A pretty picture they made, with their red backs above the green, and one with pleasantly cool suggestions on a warm June day. ' Undisturbed in the little bay, meanwhile, sat a pair of Shovellers, whom i often found resting on stones in the quiet water. Seeing me they swam out
