24 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



beach. They are among the most beautiful of 

 our winter visitors, their white and brown plum- 

 age being a sight always welcome to the eyes of 

 those who love the birds. At intervals flocks of 

 English sparrows rose from the seaweed and 

 shunned me. There seems to be no form of 

 vegetable food-supply upon which our native 

 birds depend, that this ravenous, non-migratory 

 pest does not devour. 



From Point of Pines to Crescent Beach sta- 

 tion the thunder of the breakers and the rush of 

 the wind and snow were ceaseless. The storm 

 hurried me along in its strong embrace and drove 

 its chill through me. The tide had left the 

 marshes, and the snow had claimed them. As 

 the waves retreated from the beach the snow 

 stuck to the gleaming pebbles, the snaky bits of 

 kelp and the purple shells. Where two hours 

 before, at high tide, the waves had dashed foam 

 fifty feet into the air, now the breakwaters and 

 the heaps of shingle and seaweed were covered 

 with white from the drippings of the great roof 

 of sky. 



The whistlers were still in the harbor at three 

 o'clock, but most of the gulls had gone. Snow 

 clung to decks, masts, yards, furled sails and 

 rigging. It whitened the water-front of the 

 city, purified the docks, and made even Crab 

 Alley seem picturesque as I ploughed through it 

 homeward bound. 



