124 ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN'S. 



all freshly planted, like the city were 

 myrtle warblers, prairie warblers, and blue 

 yellowbacks, the two latter in song. Once, 

 after a shower, I watched a myrtle bird 

 bathing on a branch among the wet leaves. 

 The street gutters were running with sulphur 

 water, but he had waited for rain. I com- 

 mended his taste, being myself one of those to 

 whom water and brimstone is a combination 

 as malodorous as it seems unscriptural. 

 Noisy boat-tailed grackles, or " jackdaws," 

 were plentiful about the lakeside, mon- 

 strously long in the tail, and almost as 

 large as the fish crows, which were often 

 there with them. Over the broad lake 

 swept purple martins and white-breasted 

 swallows, and nearer the shore fed peace- 

 fully a few pied-billed grebes, or dabchicks, 

 birds that I had seen only two or three 

 times before, and at which I looked more 

 than once before I made out what they 

 were. They had every appearance of pass- 

 ing a winter of content. At the tops of 

 three or four stakes, which stood above the 

 water at wide intervals, and at long dis- 

 tances from the shore, sat commonly as 

 many cormorants, here, as everywhere, with 



