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.
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