288 THE INVITATION. 



projections of farms and other out-build- 

 ings. 



After one has made the acquaintance of 

 most of the land-birds, there remain the 

 sea-shore and its treasures. How little one 

 knows of the aquatic fowls, even after read- 

 ing carefully the best authorities, was re- 

 cently forced home to my mind by the fol- 

 lowing circumstance : I was spending a vaca- 

 tion in the interior of New York, when one 

 day a stranger alighted before the house, and 

 with a cigar box in his hand, approached me 

 as I sat in the doorway. I was about to say 

 that he would waste his time in recommend- 

 ing his cigars to me, as I never smoked, when 

 he said that, hearing I knew something about 

 birds, he had brought me one which had been 

 picked up a few hours before in a hay-field 

 near the village, and which was a stranger 

 to all who had seen it. As he began to undo 

 the box I expected to see some of our own 

 rarer birds, perhaps the rose-breasted gross- 

 beak or Bohemian chatterer. Imagine, then, 

 how I was taken aback, when I beheld, in- 

 stead, a swallow-shaped bird, quite as large 

 as a pigeon, with forked tail, glossy-black 

 above, and snow-white beneath. Its parti- 

 webbed feet, and its long, graceful wings, at 



