A Bird’s-Eye View 
away, shooting to this side and that, in search 
of prey.’’ 
This is a graphic picture of the peculiar at- 
mosphere of water fowl. In such a scene, all 
the finest song birds the earth can offer will 
vanish from one’s thoughts in the sense of 
glorious wildness, freedom, and buoyancy of 
- spirits displayed by these noble and graceful 
creatures, that are so fitting an accompaniment 
to the sounding solitude and sombre majesty of 
ocean scenery. Reflecting in their various tem- 
peraments the alternating moods of the marine 
divinity, they are the genii of the deep, ocean’s 
glances in the upper air. The giant black- 
backed gull, rapacious and tyrannical, the eagle 
of all water fowl, matches the ocean’s fiercest 
energy. The frigate bird, petrel, and albatross, 
forever ranging over its illimitable expanse, be- 
token well its interminable restlessness. The 
milder sorts of gulls, and terns, snow-white and 
pearly winged, reflect its crested waves, when, 
kindled by a summer’s wind, the liquid plain is 
flecked with silver caps; while the dainty float- 
ing phalaropes, with the nimble-footed plover 
and sandpiper that frequent the shore, image the 
laughing ripples on the beach, when the majestic 
ocean spirit throbs in vast serenity. Byron’s 
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