O.Y THE UPPER ST. JOHN'S. 145 



Who does not love to be flattered by an 

 ingenuous boy ? 



All in all, the day had been one to be re- 

 membered. In addition to the birds already 

 named three of them new to me we had 

 seen great blue herons, little blue herons, 

 Louisiana herons, night herons, cormorants, 

 pied-billed grebes, kingfishers, red-winged 

 blackbirds, boat-tailed grackles, redpoll and 

 myrtle warblers, savanna sparrows, tree 

 swallows, purple martins, a few meadow 

 larks, and the ubiquitous turkey buzzard. 

 The boat-tails abounded along the river 

 banks, and, with their tameness and their 

 ridiculous outcries, kept us amused whenever 

 there was nothing else to absorb our atten- 

 tion. The prairie lands through which the 

 river meanders proved to be surprisingly 

 dry and passable (the water being unusually 

 low, the boy said), with many cattle pas- 

 tured upon them. Here we found the sa- 

 vanna sparrows ; here, too, the meadow larks 

 were singing. 



It was a hard pull across the rough lake 

 against the wind (a dangerous sheet of 

 water for flat-bottomed rowboats, I was told 

 afterward), but the boy was equal to it, pro- 



