alighted, for suddenly she swerved in the air and came to rest close beside him where he floated in a little open space in the midst of a great raft of coots.
Much as he had longed for her, impatiently as he had awaited her, he took her coming very calmly. With a low guttural "konk, konk," he swam slowly up to her, his head and neck held high, jerking his bill upward. She acknowledged his greeting by bobbing her head, and for some minutes the pair swam slowly in circles. Then, without further demonstration, the shoveller drake led his demure gray-brown sweetheart towards a shallow spot near the lagoon's margin where the soft, slimy mud was particularly rich in snails.
Within an hour of their meeting death struck close by them, so close that they could almost feel the wind from his wings. The tyrant was abroad again. Straight towards their pool that ominous thunder of pinions rolled across the flats as flock after flock of ducks rose and fled from the path of the eagle. The crippled drake, remembering suddenly his narrow escape of the day before, began swimming rapidly towards the reeds, while around him the coot fleet scattered and broke, and with a hiss and a roar of whirring pinions the duck squadrons bounded upward. Close behind the drake swam his mate, bound to him by an instinct even
