After the ice is out of the rivers the bird-lover is kept busy. In the early sunny morning the duet of the robins and the meadow larks is better than breakfast. March usually gives us the hermit thrush and the ruby-and golden-crowned kinglets; the song, field, fox, white throated, Savannah and Lincoln sparrows; the meadow lark, the bronzed grackle and the cowbird; the red-winged, the yellow-head and the rusty blackbirds; the wood pewee and the olive-sided flycatcher; the flicker and the sap-sucker, the mourning dove and several of the water fowl. Last week--the first week in March--a golden eagle paused in his migration to sit awhile on a fence post at the side of a timber road. Two men got near enough to see the color of his feathers and then one of them, with a John Burroughs instinct, took a shot at him. He missed; there was a spread of the great wings and the big bird resumed his journey northward. * * * * * By the shallow creek which ripples over the many-hued gravel there is much of interest. The frog sits on the bank as we approach and goes into the water with a splash. In the quiet little bayous the minnows are lively, and tracks upon the soft mud show that the mink has been watching them. A pile of neatly cleaned clam shells is evidence that the muskrat has had a feast. There is a huge clam, partly opened, at arm's length from the shore. We fish it out and pry it open farther; out comes the remains of the esculent clam, and we almost jump when it is followed by a live and healthy crawfish. It never pays to be a clam. It is very meet, right, and the bounden duty of every quadruped, biped and decapod to prey upon the clam. Farther down is a sandy hollow which was deep under water in the great January freshet. That freshet deposited a new layer of sand and also bushels of clam and snail shells of all sizes and species. They lie so thick they may be taken up by the shovelful. Two or three dead fish are also found. What a fine fossiliferous stratum will be found here about a hundred million years from now!