Where the rowdy brook debouched into a small meadow the old Muskrat sat in the Spring sunshine nibbling his root breakfast. Out of the water under his nose a gray bird emerged with a billful of "wigglers."
"How's fishin' this morning?"
"Good! Caught three hellgramites and a caddis on this trip down stream."
"What's that stone tube in your mouth?"
"That's a caddis castle; fine fat boy inside."
"Um — Say, you're a mystery. How do you manage to fly under water with that light body and you haven't any webs between your toes but you swim?"
"Do it same as a fish or duck — just drive out all air from my body and I'm heavy as a lead sinker."
"Why don't your feathers get soaked?"
"Can't — keep 'em well oiled."
"Well — you ort to have been a duck. Notice you always follow every bend in the streams. You could save time by cutting the points."
"Yes, and miss a meal."
"That what you're after when you dive into the water while flying?"
"Sure."
"Well, you're a nervy cuss. Not afraid of me at all, even when we meet in one of my dark tunnels?"
"Why should I be? You never eat anything but those old roots and stalks. How you ever get any good out of them is a mystery."
"I'm no more mysterious to you than you are to me. You fly and walk under water just as easily as you do above it and I can't get off the ground."
"Well, I've got to be goin' — I can hear those four Cincluses calling for breakfast — clear down here."
"Good-bye. There's a lot more questions I want to ask you. Call again."
"You're a regular old interrogation mark. See you later."
NEST: On stream banks, often where spray keeps it damp and sometimes behind a waterfall, thru which the parents fly to reach it. A beautiful oval of moss, mud and leaves, well arched with round entrance on side.
EGGS: 3–5; pure white.
Mountains of western North America from Rockies to Pacific coast, north to Alaska, south to western Texas and northern Lower California. Resident, even in Alaska.