210 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 



Common you may see them almost any day 

 (in some seasons, at least) flying back and 

 forth between the river and the harbor. One 

 morning in early March I witnessed quite a 

 procession, one small company after another, 

 the largest numbering eleven birds, though it 

 was nothing to compare with what seems to be 

 a daily occurrence at some places further south. 

 At another time, in the middle of January, I 

 saw what appeared to be a flock of herring gulls 

 sailing over the city, making progress in their 

 own wonderfully beautiful manner, circle after 

 circle. But I noticed that about a dozen of 

 them were black ! What were these ? If they 

 could have held their peace I might have gone 

 home puzzled ; but the crow is in one respect a 

 Tery polite bird : he will seldom fly over your 

 head without letting fall the compliments of 

 the morning, and a vigorous caw, caw soon pro- 

 claimed my black gulls to be simply erratic 

 specimens of Corvus Americanus. Why were 

 they conducting thus strangely ? Had they be- 

 come so attached to their friends as to have 

 taken to imitating them unconsciously? Or 

 were they practicing upon the vanity of these 

 useful allies of theirs, these master fishermen ? 

 Who can answer ? The ways of shrewd people 

 are hard to understand ; and in all New Eng- 

 land tbere is no shrewder Yankee than the 



