he was content to feast his eyes upon the bird's beauty and watch
its motions.

The drake took no notice of the moor-hen and her dusky dabs, but
swam right out in the middle, seemed to stand up on the water,
stretching out his neck and flapping his wings so sharply that
something right on the other side moved suddenly, and Robin saw
that there was another bird which he had not seen before--a
long-necked, long-legged, loose-feathered gray creature with sharp
eyes and a thin beak, standing in the water and staring eagerly at
the drake as much as to say:

"What's the matter there?" while he uttered aloud the one enquiring
cry--

"Quaik?"

"Wirk--wirk--wirk!" said the drake.

"Quack, quack, quack, quack!" came from out of the reeds, and a
brown duck came sailing out, followed by ten little yellow balls of
down with flat beaks, swimming like their mother, but in a hurried
pop-and-go-one fashion, in and out, and round and round, and
seeming to go through country dances on the water in chase of water
beetles and running spiders or flies, while the duck kept on
uttering a warning quack, and the drake, who, first with one eye
and then with the other, kept a sharp look up in the sky for
falcons and hawks, now and then muttered out a satisfied
"Wirk--wirk--wirk!"