OcEAN WANDERERS 
At length I saw through the haze what I took to 
be the right one. After a short row against the 
tide and an increasing wind, just as I was almost 
within hail it squared away and left me. Then I 
took another course, and, after nearly an hour’s 
futile effort, had begun to wonder what my chances 
were of being able to row that heavy craft against 
the wind to the distant invisible shore, without food 
or water, when the familiar schooner loomed up 
not far away, and I was far from sorry to set foot 
again upon her ancient and slimy deck. ‘Though I 
had a camera with me on this trip, it was before - 
the days when I realized its value as an adjunct to 
bird-study. I would give a good deal now to be 
off there again among that assemblage of birds, 
properly equipped. 
Early the next morning the fog was very dense 
on shore, and I found quite a few of the Phalaropes, 
in small groups, on the marshes, feeding like the 
other numerous waders, at the edges of the pools. 
They were gone, though, as soon as the fog lifted. 
The fishermen say that this is about the only 
occasion when they ordinarily come to land. One 
morning, early in this same August, before I had 
arrived, the fog was especially dense, and at day- 
break they encountered very large numbers of the 
little things on the flats, as they were starting for the 
day’s fishing. The birds departed as soon as it was 
fairly light. Occasionally great numbers of Phal- 
aropes are reported on the New England coast, but 
I have been off there hundreds of times, in various 
years, only to see comparatively small, scattering 
flocks. Hence I incline to the opinion that, in the 
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