PART OF THE PELICAN CITY, AS SEEN FROM THE BOAT 
CHAPTER I 
CITIES OF THE BROWN PELICANS 
There, in sweet thraldo?n, yet nnweening why. 
The patient dam, who ne'er till then had hnown 
Parental instinct, brooded o'er her eggs. 
Long ere she found the curious secret out. 
That life was hatching in their brittle shells. 
Then, from a wild rapacious bird of prey. 
Tamed by the kindly process, she became 
That gentlest of all living things, —a another. 
James Montgomery. From “ The Pelican Island.” 
E arly spring- in New England is apt to be, at best, 
the most trying time of all the year. One recent 
season it was notably so, with its succession of raw, 
sunless days and protracted storms. During some of my long 
drives, in March, through the thawing and stiffening mud, 
hunting for nests of the Great Horned Owl, I was almost 
frozen, particularly as no successes came, with their exhilara- 
