DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS. 45 



presence. He fired twice before we got out 

 of sight, but, to judge from his motions, 

 without success. A man's happiness is per- 

 haps of more value than a plover's, though 

 I do not see how we are to prove it ; but my 

 sympathies, then as always, were with the 

 birds. 



Within a week or so I received a letter 

 from Mrs. Celia Thaxter, together with a 

 wing, a foot, and one cinnamon feather. 

 "By this wing which I send you," she be- 

 gan, "can you tell me the name of the bird 

 that owned it?" Then after some descrip- 

 tion of the plumage, she continued: "In the 

 late tremendous tempest myriads of these 

 birds settled on the Isles of Shoals, filling 

 the air with a harsh, shrill, incessant cry, 

 and not to be driven away by guns or any 

 of man's inhospitable treatment. Their 

 number was so great as to be amazing, and 

 they had never been seen before by any of 

 the present inhabitants of the Shoals. They 

 are plovers of some kind, I should judge, 

 but I do not know." On the 16th she wrote 

 again: "All sorts of strange things were 

 cast up by the storm, and the plovers were 

 busy devouring everything they could find; 



