Of all the loons that cried out to me in the night, or shared the summer lakes with me, only one ever gave me the opportunity of watching at close quarters.  It was on a very wild lake, so wild that no one had ever visited it before in summer, and a mother loon felt safe in leaving the open shore, where she generally nests, and placing her eggs on a bog at the head of a narrow bay.  I found them there a day or two after my arrival.

I used to go at all hours of the day, hoping the mother would get used to me and my canoe, so that I could watch her later, teaching her little ones; but her wildness was unconquerable.  Whenever I came in sight of the nest-bog, with only the loon’s neck and head visible, standing up very straight and still in the grass, I would see her slip from the nest, steal away through the green cover to a deep place, and glide under water without leaving a ripple.  Then, looking sharp over the side into the clear water, I would get a glimpse of her, just a gray streak with a string of silver bubbles, passing deep and swift under my canoe.  So she went through the opening, and appeared far out in the lake, where she would swim back and forth, as if fishing, until I went away.  As I never disturbed her nest, and always paddled away soon, she thought undoubtedly that she had fooled me, and that I knew nothing about her or her nest.

Then I tried another plan.  I lay down in my canoe, and had Simmo paddle me up to the nest.  While the loon was out on the lake, hidden by the grassy shore, I went and sat on a bog, with a friendly alder bending over me, within twenty feet of the nest, which was in plain sight.  Then Simmo paddled away, and Hukweem came back without the slightest suspicion.  As I had supposed, from the shape of the nest, she did not sit on her two eggs; she sat on the bog instead, and gathered them close to her side with her wing.  That was all the brooding they had, or needed; for within a week there were two bright little loons to watch instead of the eggs.

After the first success I used to go alone and, while the mother bird was out on the lake, would pull my canoe up in the grass, a hundred yards or so below the nest.  From here I entered the alders and made my way to the bog, where I could watch Hukweem at my leisure.  After a long wait she would steal into the bay very shyly, and after much fear and circumspection glide up to the canoe.  It took a great deal of looking and listening to convince her that it was harmless, and that I was not hiding near in the grass.  Once convinced, however, she would come direct to the nest; and I had the satisfaction at last of watching a loon at close quarters.

She would sit there for hours—­never sleeping apparently, for her eye was always bright—­preening herself, turning her head slowly, so as to watch on all sides, snapping now and then at an obtrusive fly, all in utter unconsciousness that I was just behind her, watching every movement.  Then, when I had enough, I would steal away along a caribou path, and push off quietly in my canoe without looking back.  She saw me, of course, when I entered the canoe, but not once did she leave the nest.  When I reached the open lake, a little searching with my glass always showed me her head there in the grass, still turned in my direction apprehensively.