DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS. 41 
for him (and against him), remains at heart 
a child of nature. His ancestors may have 
been shoemakers for fifty generations, but 
none the less he feels an impulse now and 
then to quit his bench and go hunting, 
though it be only for a mess of clams. 
Leaving the crowd, we kept on our way 
across the beach to Little Nahant, the cliffs 
of which offer an excellent position from 
which to sweep the bay in search of loons, 
old-squaws, and other sea-fowl. Here we 
presently met two gunners. They had been 
more successful than most of the sportsmen 
that one falls in with on such trips; between 
them they had a guillemot, two horned larks, 
and a brace of large plovers, of some species 
unknown to us, but noticeable for their 
bright cinnamon-colored rumps. “ Why 
could n’t we have found those plovers, in- 
stead of that fellow?” said my companion, 
as we crossed the second beach. I fear he 
was envious at the prosperity of the wicked. 
But it was only a passing cloud; for on 
reaching the main peninsula we were 
speedily arrested by loud cries from a piece 
of marsh, and after considerable wading and 
a clamber over a detestable barbed-wire 
