set up a violent screaming.  “It is because he has caught a fish,” said the boy; “he is calling his mate.”  “No,” said I, “it is because the eagle is after him.  Wait a bit.”  In fact, the eagle was already in pursuit, and the hawk, as he always does, had begun struggling upward with all his might.  That is the fish-hawk’s way of appealing to Heaven against his oppressor.  He was safe for that time.  Three negroes, shad-fishers, were just beyond us (we had seen them there in the morning, wading about the river setting their nets), and at the sight of them and of us, I have no doubt, the eagle turned away.  The boy was not peculiar in his notion about the osprey’s scream.  Some one else had told me that the bird always screamed after catching a fish.  But I knew better, having seen him catch a hundred, more or less, without uttering a sound.  The safe rule, in such cases, is to listen to all you hear, and believe it—­after you have verified it for yourself.

It was while we were discussing this question, I think, that the boy opened his heart to me about my methods of study.  He had looked through the glass now and then, and of course had been astonished at its power.  “Why,” he said finally, “I never had any idea it could be so much fun just to look at birds in the way you do!” I liked the turn of his phrase.  It seemed to say, “Yes, I begin to see through it.  We are in the same boat.  This that you call study is only another kind of sport.”  I could have shaken hands with him but that he had the oars.  Who does not love to be flattered by an ingenuous boy?

All in all, the day had been one to be remembered.  In addition to the birds already named—­three of them new to me—­we had seen great blue herons, little blue herons, Louisiana herons, night herons, cormorants, pied-billed grebes, kingfishers, red-winged blackbirds, boat-tailed grackles, redpoll and myrtle warblers, savanna sparrows, tree swallows, purple martins, a few meadow larks, and the ubiquitous turkey buzzard.  The boat-tails abounded along the river banks, and, with their tameness and their ridiculous outcries, kept us amused whenever there was nothing else to absorb our attention.  The prairie lands through which the river meanders proved to be surprisingly dry and passable (the water being unusually low, the boy said), with many cattle pastured upon them.  Here we found the savanna sparrows; here, too, the meadow larks were singing.

It was a hard pull across the rough lake against the wind (a dangerous sheet of water for flat-bottomed rowboats, I was told afterward), but the boy was equal to it, protesting that he didn’t feel tired a bit, now we had got the “purples;” and if he did not catch the fever from drinking some quarts of river water (a big bottle of coffee having proved to be only a drop in the bucket), against my urgent remonstrances and his own judgment, I am sure he looks back upon the labor as on the whole well spent.  He was going North in the spring, he told me.  May joy be with him wherever he is!