After a few minutes of watching, the duck went into the grass again, and I started to creep down the hill, keeping my eyes intently on the pond.  Halfway down, another duck appeared, and I dropped flat on the hillside in plain sight.  Of course the duck noticed the unusual object.  There was a commotion in the grass; heads came up here and there.  The next moment, to my great astonishment, fully fifty black ducks were swimming about in the greatest uneasiness.

I lay very still and watched.  Five minutes passed; then quite suddenly all motion ceased in the pond; every duck sat with neck standing straight up from the water, looking directly at me.  So still were they that one could easily have mistaken them for stumps or peat bogs.  After a few minutes of this kind of watching they seemed satisfied, and glided back, a few at a time, into the grass.

When all were gone I rolled down the hill and gained the run, getting soaking wet as I splashed into it.  Then it was easier to advance without being discovered; for whenever a duck came out to look round—­which happened almost every minute at first—­I could drop into the grass and be out of sight.

In half an hour I had gained the edge of a low bank, well covered by coarse water-grass.  Carefully pushing this aside, I looked through, and almost held my breath, they were so near.  Just below me, within six feet, was a big drake, with head drawn down so close to his body that I wondered what he had done with his neck.  His eyes were closed; he was fast asleep.  In front of him were eight or ten more ducks close together, all with heads under their wings.  Scattered about in the grass everywhere were small groups, sleeping, or pluming their glossy dark feathers.

Beside the pleasure of watching them, the first black ducks that I had ever seen unconscious, there was the satisfaction of thinking how completely they had been outwitted at their own game of sharp watching.  How they would have jumped had they only known what was lying there in the grass so near their hiding place!  At first, every time I saw a pair of little black eyes wink, or a head come from under a wing, I felt myself shrinking close together in the thought that I was discovered; but that wore off after a time, when I found that the eyes winked rather sleepily, and the necks were taken out just to stretch them, much as one would take a comfortable yawn.

[Illustration]

Once I was caught squarely, but the grass and my being so near saved me.  I had raised my head and lay with chin in my hands, deeply interested in watching a young duck making a most elaborate toilet, when from the other side an old bird shot suddenly into the open water and saw me as I dropped out of sight.  There was a low, sharp quack which brought every duck out of his hiding, wide awake on the instant.  At first they all bunched together at the farther side, looking straight at the bank where I lay.  Probably