CHILDHOOD 



15 



plained to me) the wrong one out of so many 

 right ones; but I did not see any fish caught 

 at Schaffhausen. 



After a year we came back to America, and 

 went to Hve first on Staten Island. I was then 

 about eleven years old, and have a definite rec- 

 ollection of noticing birds there. Two kinds 

 made a deep and lasting picture in my mind, 

 though I did not know their names. Great flocks 

 of birds came to the juniper trees that bordered 

 one side of the place to eat the berries in season, 

 and there were many spotted-breasted thrushes 

 that passed through at certain times of the 

 year. These happenings were in the fall, and 

 were impressed on my mind by the men who 

 were shooting the thrushes. A German pot- 

 hunter showed me a brown thrush, and told me 

 that all the birds that had a yellow lining to their 

 mouths w^ere good to eat. Then he opened the 

 thrush's mouth and I marked the beautiful 

 golden color inside. Another gunner came after 

 the birds that fed on the juniper berries, and shot 

 into the flock, killing a great number. Some of 

 the birds had plain wings, but others were deco- 

 rated with beautiful sealing-wax appendages to 

 some of the feathers of the wing. These charac- 

 teristics, together with the soft brown colors and 

 the pointed crests, define them now as cedar 

 birds. Still the fishing interested me on Staten 



