An August Reverie. 213 



year and place. It was near here, not many years 

 ago, that I sat upon a sand dune to eat my lunch, 

 and became so interested in throwing bits of bread 

 and meat to the fearless terns that I went away, at 

 last, hungry, having thrown all of my lunch to 

 the birds. I remember an eccentric druggist who 

 placed a stuffed fish-hawk over his counter, and 

 the next spring a taxidermist near by had orders 

 for a score of skins. To the credit of one wise 

 man in the village, be it recorded, the law inter- 

 fered ; but who ever heard of the law protecting 

 a wren or a bluebird ? In some one of the 

 forthcoming dictionaries let the compound word 

 " dead-letter" be defined as " the law protecting 

 useful birds." 



As it neared high noon, the expected happened. 

 Birds came trooping in, and every one on the 

 same errand, to take life easily. At times they 

 were absurdly distributed, and recalled the com- 

 partment bird-cages in a menagerie. But inborn 

 restlessness soon changed all this, and their noon- 

 ing became as active as a morning hunt, but in a 

 different way. The rippling water below them 

 was a constant attraction, and from the tree to 



