Sometimes, when I surprised him on a muddy shore and he flew away without taking even one of his tidbits, I would follow his back track and uncover his hiding places to see what he had caught. Frogs, fish, pollywogs, mussels, a baby muskrat,—they were all there, each hidden cunningly under a bit of dried grass and mud. And once I went away and hid on the opposite shore to see if he would come back. After an hour or more he appeared, looking first at my tracks, then at all the shore with greater keenness than usual; then he went straight to three different hiding places that I had found, and two more that I had not seen, and flew away to his nest, a fringe of frogs and fish hanging at either side of his long bill as he went.
He had arranged them on the ground like the spokes of a wheel, as a fox does, heads all out on either side, and one leg or the tail of each crossed in a common pile in the middle; so that he could bite down over the crossed members and carry the greatest number of little frogs and fish with the least likelihood of dropping any in his flight.
The mussels which he found were invariably, I think, eaten as his own particular tidbits; for I never saw him attempt to carry them away, though once I found two or three where he had hidden them. Generally he could crack their shells easily by blows of his powerful beak, or by whacking them against a root; and so he had no need (and probably no knowledge) of the trick, which every gull knows, of mounting up to a height with some obstinate hardshell and dropping it on a rock to crack it.
If Quoskh were fishing for his own dinner, instead of for his hungry nestlings, he adopted different tactics. For them he was a hunter, sly, silent, crafty, stalking his game by approved still-hunting methods; for himself he was the true fisherman, quiet, observant, endlessly patient. He seemed to know that for himself he could afford to take his time and be comfortable, knowing that all things, especially fish, come to him who waits long enough; while for his little ones he must hurry, else their croakings from too long fasting would surely bring hungry, unwelcome prowlers to the big nest in the hemlock.
Once I saw him fishing in a peculiar way, which reminded me instantly of the chumming process with which every mackerel fisherman on the coast is familiar. He caught a pollywog for bait, with which he waded to a deep, cool place under a shady bank. There he whacked his pollywog into small bits and tossed them into the water, where the chum speedily brought a shoal of little fish to feed. Quoskh meanwhile stood in the shadow, where he would not be noticed, knee-deep in water, his head drawn down into his shoulders, and a friendly leafy branch bending over him to screen him from prying eyes. As a fish swam up to his chum he would spear it like lightning; throw his head back and wriggle it head-first down his long neck; then settle down to watch for the next one. And there he stayed, alternately watching and feasting, till he had enough; when he drew his head farther down into his shoulders, shut his eyes, and went fast asleep in the cool shadows,—a perfect picture of fishing indolence and satisfaction.
When I went to the nest and hid myself in the underbrush to watch, day after day, I learned more of Quoskh’s fishing and hunting. The nest was in a great evergreen, in a gloomy swamp,—a villainous place of bogs and treacherous footing, with here and there a little island of large trees. On one of these islands a small colony of herons were nesting. During the day they trailed far afield, scattering widely, each pair to its own particular fishing grounds; but when the shadows grew long, and night prowlers stirred abroad, the herons came trailing back again, making curious, wavy, graceful lines athwart the sunset glow, to croak and be sociable together, and help each other watch the long night out.
Quoskh the Watchful—I
could tell my great bird’s mate by sight or hearing from all others, either by her greater size or a peculiar double croak she had—had hidden her nest in the top of a great green hemlock. Near by, in the high crotch of a dead tree, was another nest, which she had built, evidently, years before and added to each successive spring, only to abandon it at last for the evergreen. Both birds used to go to the old nest freely; and I have wondered since if it were not a bit of great shrewdness on their part to leave it there in plain sight, where any prowler might see and climb to it; while the young were securely hidden, meanwhile, in the top of the near-by hemlock, where they could see without being seen. Only at a distance could you find the nest. When under the hemlock, the mass of branches screened it perfectly, and your attention was wholly taken by the other nest, standing out in bold relief in the dead tree-top.