DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS. 43 
It was a summery spot; moths were flit- 
ting about us, and two grasshoppers leaped 
out of our way as we crossed the lawn. They 
showed something less than summer liveli- 
ness, it is true; it was only afterwards, and 
by way of contrast, that I recalled Leigh 
Hunt’s 
“Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, 
Catching his heart up at the feel of June.”’ 
But they had done well, surely, to weather 
the recent snow-storm and the low tempera- 
ture; for the mercury had been down to 10° 
within a fortnight, and a large snow-bank 
was still in sight against the wall. Sud- 
denly a close flock of eight or ten birds flew 
past us and disappeared behind the hill. 
“Pigeons?” said my companion. I thought 
not; they were sea-birds of some kind. Soon 
we heard killdeer cries from the beach, and, 
looking up, saw the birds, three of them, 
alighting on the sand. We started down 
the hill in haste, but just at that moment an 
old woman, a miserable gatherer of drift 
rubbish, walked directly upon them, and 
they made off. Then we saw that our 
“pigeons,” or “sea-birds,” had been nothing 
but killdeer plovers, which, like other long- 
