Once a horseman frightened it as he rode over the bridge, but even then it barely rose from the water with a startled _yip_. The man glanced at it (I was just then looking carelessly in another direction), and passed on--to my relief. At that moment the most interesting mountaineer in North Carolina would have found me unresponsive. As for my own presence, the phalarope seemed hardly to notice it, though I stood much of the time within a distance of ten feet, and now and then considerably nearer than that,--without so much as a grass-blade for cover,--holding my glass upon it steadily till a stitch in my side made the attitude all but intolerable. The lovely bird rode the water in the lightest possible manner, and was easily put about by slight puffs of wind; but it could turn upon an insect with lightning quickness. It was never still for an instant except on two occasions, when it came close to the shore and sat motionless in the lee of a log. There it crouched upon its feet, which were still under water, and seemed to be resting. It preened its feathers, also, and once it rubbed its bill down with its claw, but the motion was too quick for my eye to follow, though I was near enough to see the nostril with perfect distinctness. I was in love with the bird from the first minute. Its tameness, the elegance of its shape and plumage, the grace and vivacity of its movements, these of themselves were enough to drive a bird-lover wild. Add to them its novelty and unexpectedness, and the reader may judge for himself of my state of mind. It was the dearest and tamest creature I had ever seen, I kept saying to myself, forgetful for the moment of two blue-headed vireos which at different times had allowed me to stroke and feed them as they sat brooding on their eggs. Another thing I must mention, as adding not a little to the pleasure of the hour. The moment I set eyes upon the phalarope, before I had taken even a mental note of its plumage, I thought of my friend and correspondent, Celia Thaxter, and of her eager inquiries about the “bay bird,” which she had then seen for the first time at the Isles of Shoals--“just like a sandpiper, only smaller, and swimming on the water like a duck.” And as the bird before me darted hither and thither, so amazingly agile, I remembered her pretty description of this very trait, a description which I here copy from her letter:--