IN OLD NEWBURYPORT 131 



join them. Over the river the fish hawk soars as 

 well as the gulls, and the marsh hawk crosses from 

 one mouse-hunting ground to another. Out of 

 the sky a Wilson's snipe fell like a gray aerolite, 

 while I was there, a lightning-like plunge ended 

 by an alighting as soft as the fall of a thistledown 

 on the marsh grass. This was proof that the 

 drought has been long, for the Wilson's snipe likes 

 the fresh water meadows best and rarely comes 

 to the salt marsh grass unless his familiar stab- 

 bing ground is too dry to be thrust with comfort. 

 He came like a visitor from another sphere. In 

 the second of his lighting I caught a flash of his 

 mottle gray and brown, then he vanished as if his 

 plunge had after all taken him far into the ground 

 and all you need expect to find was the hole by 

 which he entered. Yet neither bird nor hole 

 could I find by diligent search in the marsh grass. 

 Never a top waved with his progress among the 

 culms, and only by scent could he have been 

 followed. 



On the other side of Newburyport you come to 

 the marshes again, great level stretches of them, 

 silvered with winding threads of the sea that seek 



