hornpout's

Updated: May 1, 2025

Then, just as the bird had sipped and lifted its head for a last swallow, Chigwooltz hurled himself out of water. One snap of his big mouth, and the sparrow was done for. An hour later, when I came down to my canoe, he was sitting low on the lily pads, winking sleepily now and then, with eight little sparrow's toes curling over the rim of his under lip, like a hornpout's whiskers.

William J. (William Joseph) Long - Wilderness Ways