SALT-WATER BIRDS. 201 



water as the lower ones settle among the decoys. 

 As we rise in the blind the whole mass is turned 

 into a laboring turmoil of black and white, with 

 Wa — ook, zva — ook, wa — ook clanging from a hun- 

 dred white-collared throats. Four barrels flame 

 from the blind, and three brant sink with sullen 

 splash. Two more lag behind their fast-retreat- 

 ing comrades, one gradually rising and overtaking 

 them, the other settling lower and lower, until, 

 cleaving a long furrow in the smooth surface of 

 the bay, it floats dead nearly a half-mile away. 



Beyond where the curlew are flitting along 

 the wet shore, and the gull is winding his airy 

 way ; beyond where the snipe are whisking over 

 the blue waters, and the ever-hungry pelican 

 with heavy plunge is shivering the smooth 

 mirror beneath, our eyes are again fixed in deep 

 expectation. What countless hordes of the 

 nobility of water-fowl have streamed over that 

 sand-spit in the ages gone ! And how long be- 

 fore the whole winter shall pass with never a 

 dark-dotted line rising into the blue sky beyond 



it! 



But a soft winnowing of the air behind dis- 

 turbs our reflections and reminds us it is not 



