When Olaf came with a basket and some short-handled hoes, the Doctor told Dodo she might take off her shoes and stockings and go down on the sandbar with Nat and Olaf, to dig clams for the chowder for dinner.

“More niceness!” screamed Dodo.  “Olaf!  Olaf! do clams grow in hills like potatoes?  I thought they swam like fish!  Aren’t you coming, uncle, and Rap too, to tell us about clams?”

“No; you must talk to Olaf.  We are going to help Olive with her seaweeds.”

The Blue Jay

Length nearly twelve inches.

A fine blue and black crest on the head, very tall and pointed.

Upper parts blue, brighter on the wings and tail, which have many black bars and some white tips.

Under parts grayish-white, with a black collar.

A Citizen of eastern North America from the Fur Countries to Florida.

Belonging to the guild of Ground Gleaners, his special work being to kill grasshoppers and caterpillars; but often eats young birds and sucks eggs, like a cannibal bird.

CHAPTER XIX

A FEATHERED FISHERMAN

THE OSPREY

Before the day was over the children were so in love with Olaf—­with the beach where crabs were living, with the sea over which water birds were soaring—­and wished to know so many things, that the Doctor told them the only way to satisfy them would be to camp on the shore in August, when the water would be warm enough for bathing; for to answer all the questions they asked would take a month.

“And then you can tell us another bookful about water and fish, and crabs and sky,” said Dodo.  “So we shall have a bird book, and a butterfly book, and Olive’s flower book!”

“Yes, and a beast book, too!” said Nat, “about coons and bears, and squirrels and foxes, you know!  Rap has seen foxes right on our Farm!”

“I wish I knew something about the stars—­and the rocks too,” said Rap very earnestly.  “Was this earth ever young, Doctor?”

“Yes, my boy, everything that Heart of Nature guides had a beginning and was once young.”

“What is that?  An Eagle?” cried Dodo suddenly, pointing up to a very large bird, with a white breast and brown-barred tail, who flew over the bay and dived into the water.

[Illustration:  Osprey.]

“It’s the Fisherman Bird,” said Olaf.  “Some call it the Fish Hawk and others the Osprey.  They say it lives all over North America, but it goes far south in winter, and when it conies back in spring we know the fish are running again; for it lives on the fish it catches, and won’t come until they are plenty.”

“How does it catch fish?” asked Dodo.

“It hovers overhead until it sees, with its sharp eye, a fish ripple the water; then it pounces down like a flash, and grabs the fish with, its long claws, that are made like grappling-irons.  If the fish is small the Osprey carries it home easily; but if it is a big one there may be a fight.  Sometimes, if the Osprey’s claws get caught in a fish too large to fly away with, the Fisherman Bird is dragged under water and drowned.”