100 ALONG THE IIILLSBOROUGH. 



cry, not a voice missing! How they had 

 managed it was beyond my ken. 



Another island, farther out than that of 

 the rails (but the rails, like the long-billed 

 marsh wrens, appeared to be present in 

 force all up and down the river, in suitable 

 places), was occupied nightly as a crow- 

 roost. Judged by the morning clamor, 

 which, like that of the rails, I heard from 

 my bed, its population must have been enor- 

 mous. One evening I happened to come 

 up the street just in time to see the hinder 

 part of the procession some hundreds of 

 birds flying across the river. They came 

 from the direction of the pine lands in 

 larger and Smaller squads, and with but a 

 moderate amount of noise moved straight 

 to their destination. All but one of them 

 so moved, that is to say. The performance 

 of that one exception was a mystery. He 

 rose high in the air, over the river, and 

 remained soaring all by himself, acting 

 sometimes as if he were catching insects, 

 till the flight had passed, even to the last 

 scattering detachments. What could be 

 the meaning of his eccentric behavior? 

 Some momentary caprice had taken him, 



