TEE SEA IN A SNOWSTORM. 21 



fifteen minutes it bobbed up six times in the 

 same spot, staying afloat each time from fifteen 

 to thirty seconds, and below about two minutes. 

 It was black above, snowy white below, and 

 formed in the likeness of a duck. It was a 

 whistler, a duck common in the harbor and 

 along our coast in winter. While diving, it was 

 probably breakfasting upon small shell-fish 

 found on the bottom. 



On the way across to East Boston I saw 

 seven or eight more whistlers and over fifty 

 herring-gulls, many of them in the dark plum- 

 age peculiar to the immature birds. Twenty 

 minutes later I stood on the narrow strip of 

 sand left between the poplar walk in front of 

 the Point of Pines Hotel and the angry ocean. 

 The wind was northeast, and blowing a gale. 

 The tide had turned half an hour before, but it 

 was still unusually high. Behind me the Sau- 

 gus marshes were wholly submerged. A few 

 haystacks alone broke the monotony of gray 

 water, foam and scudding snow. To the north 

 ought to have been seen distant Lynn, but the 

 eye was met only by stinging snowflakes and 

 cold wind. My train, before it had gone an 

 eighth of a mile, had been swallowed up in steam 

 and hurrying masses of snow. Where was Na- 

 hant ? There was not a trace of it. The hun- 

 gry waves broke ten ranks deep upon the flat 



