PART OF THE PELICAN CITY, AS SEEN FROM THE BOAT 



CHAPTER I 



CITIES OF THE BROWN PELICANS 



There, in sweet thraldom, yet unweening why. 

 The patient datn, who ne'er till then had kno^un 

 Parental instinct, brooded o'er her eggs. 

 Long ere she found the curious secret out. 

 That life was hatching in their brittle shells. 

 Then, from a wild rapacious bird of prey. 

 Tamed by the kindly process, she became 

 That gentlest of all living things, — a mother. 



James Montgomery. From " The Pelican Island." 



EARLY spring- in New England is apt to be, at best, 

 the most trying time of all the year. One recent 

 season it was notably so, with its succession of raw, 

 sunless days and protracted storms. During some of my long 

 drives, in March, through the thawing and stiffening mud, 

 hunting for nests of the Great Horned Owl, I was almost 

 frozen, particularly as no successes came, with their exhilara- 



