ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH. 11 



dence of having seen me first. Long legs, 

 long wings, a long bill and long sight and 

 long patience : such is the tall bird's dowry. 

 Good and useful qualities, all of them. 

 Long may they avail to put off the day of 

 their owner's extermination. 



The major is scarcely a bird of which you 

 can make a pet in your mind, as you may 

 of the chickadee, for instance, or the blue- 

 bird, or the hermit thrush. He does not 

 lend himself naturally to such imaginary en- 

 dearments. But it is pleasant to have him 

 on one's daily beat. I should count it one 

 compensation for having to live in Florida 

 instead of in Massachusetts (but I might 

 require a good many others) that I should 

 see him a hundred times as often. In walk- 

 ing down the river road I seldom saw less 

 than half a dozen ; not together (the major, 

 like fishermen in general, is of an unsocial 

 turn), but here one and there one, on a 

 sand-bar far out in the river, or in some 

 shallow bay, or on the submerged edge of 

 an oyster-flat. Wherever he was, he always 

 looked as if he might be going to do some- 

 thing presently ; even now, perhaps, the 

 matter was on his mind ; but at this mo- 



