A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 89 



obscuring the view of the dunes in front of us. No 

 effort of mind or eyesight could make those dunes 

 appear like anything smaller than mountains two 

 thousand feet or more in height, and seven or eight 

 miles distant. Even when some men appeared 

 upon the nearer ridges and fought the fire, it 

 was easier to imagine them giants than to reduce 

 the dunes to their proper proportions. 



This meadow was alive with birds. Meadow 

 larks, which are not larks but starlings, sang 

 their sweet lament from every acre. With them 

 were handsome redwing blackbirds, more noisy 

 but less shy. The starlings rose at long dis- 

 tances and, spreading their tails into white-edged 

 fans, let their wings quiver and then sailed 

 away, often over a ridge and out of sight. In 

 giving his plaintive song the starling stops feed- 

 ing, raises his head above the grass and shows 

 to perfection his yellow breast and its bold 

 black crescent. Song sparrows were on every 

 side, and crows and gulls rose and fell behind 

 the sandhills, where they were probably in sole 

 possession of the ocean's edge with its wealth of 

 seaweed and sea offal. 



After winding through more than a mile of 

 meadow the road bent sharply to the left and 

 passed through a crooked gap in the hills into 

 a sandy amphitheatre several acres in extent. 

 Here, surrounded by high grass-clad slopes, was 



