We passed through these, in which were several loons, or great northern divers, quietly floating, and as they watched us, sending forth their clear and clarion voices over the water.

With their long, sharp wings and their outstretched necks,like loons, but with a different flight,they were rakish-looking customers.

There were ducks and gray geese, surf-scoters and guillemots, loons and pin-tail ducks and mergansers and grebes and oyster-catchers and sea-grouse.

" The gray geese were tired out, and the loons flew around them.

"Oh! there'll be enough for both you and us," answered the loons.

The loons lay in the sea and fished, but the life and movement was upon the long sea-weed banks along the coast.

Both the wild geese and the gray geese and the loons swam out between the banks, laid themselves in a ring around the swans and stared at them.

But they no longer own the entire lake, for they have been obliged to share it with swans, grebes, coots, loons, fen-ducks, and a lot of others.

Then she happened to think that it was as good as settled that these thousands of swans and ducks and loons would lose their homes here by Takern.

It seemed as if the loons and whippoorwills grew wild with sorrow that night, and after a while Mrs. Purcell ceased her lively soliloquy, and as they walked they listened.

My barns, my byres, and my faulds a' weel filled, I'll part wi' them a' ere Johnnie shall dee. "Three men I'll send to set him free, A' harnessed wi' the best o' steel; The English loons may hear, and drie The weight o' their braid-swords to feel.

Then there arose a great surmise that some loons were playing false with the kirkyard; and, on investigation, it was found that four graves had been opened, and the bodies harled away to the college.

Swollen with vain pride at their late victory, (the fiend hang the coward loons who fled before them,) they have sworn to make this noble lady serve them barefoot in their camp.

The wild geese on the lake called their weird and plaintive cries, their strange complaints that no man understands; the loons laughed in insane despair; and the coyotes on the ridge wailed out the pain of living and the vague longings of their wild hearts.

"There were but barely two, and two cowardly loons as man could wish to meet withal."

He showed presently, laughing at us for two puir loons, and awfu'

I canna say sae muckle for the twa loons!

" "And what are the othersthe Loons and Grubsare they wading or swimming birds?"

"Loons and Grebes are swimming birds, like Ducks or Gulls, but both belong to quite a different order from any of the others and each of them belongs to a family of its own.

"Come, Sammy, be honest and tell me what you were yelling 'thief' for, over in the Green Forest?" "Peter Rabbit, you and Jimmy Skunk are crazy, just as crazy as loons!" sputtered Sammy Jay.

Its clear surface was covered with loons, and Poules d'Eau, a species of rail; with which, at certain seasons, this region abounds.

"All that I saw and heard," she whispered, "and I know father told Walter Butler, for a scout came yesterday, saying that a scout from the Rangers and the Royal Greens had crossed the hills, and I saw some of Sir John's Scotch loons riding like warlocks on the new road, and that great fool, Francy McCraw, tearing along at their head and crowing like a cock.

Some of us must ride by Fonda's Bush, or Broadalbin, whatever the Scotch loons call it; and I'll say plainly that I have no stomach for it; I want my dinner!"

145 Midsummer Night 146 The Loons 147 March 148 Solitude 149 The Maples 150 The Dog 151 I. POEMS.

THE LOONS.