Song Birds and Water Fowl 
mal name is, to the popular mind, an emblem 
of all that is desolate and forbidding, the or- 
nithologist cannot fail, sometimes, to cast a 
wistful glance in that frigid direction, where so 
many of his favorite species are truly wasting 
their sweetness on the desert air—the fox spar- 
row, snow bunting, lark, redpoll linnet, pine 
finch and crossbill; not to mention golden 
plover and other dainty water fowl, the silent 
members of the winged fraternity. 
a 
The curvature of the earth in general is eight 
inches to the mile. But, excepting on its north 
shore, Long Island is an exception, where the 
terrestrial convexity cannot exceed one-thirty- 
second of an inch to the mile, as any traveller 
will be convinced who takes a trip from Brook- 
lyn to Montauk Point. This unutterable flat- 
ness, while destructive to all interior scenery, af- 
fords ample compensation inthe glorious beaches 
along the south shore, extending for miles in an 
unbroken stretch, ornamented with the ocean’s 
fringe of breakers—a scarf that binds together 
sea and land, a cincture of live foam to girdle 
all the continents. There is more savage grand- 
eur and wildness, to stir the blood, on some 
precipitous coast, where towers 
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