252 PKAIEIE AND FOEEST. 



shot, escape to die a miserable death from hemorrhage or 

 starvation. 



Although I have obtained shots at swans, they were- 

 more frequently the result of chanoe than intention. 

 However, last winter, I determined to obtain a specimen 

 for myself, and two others for friends, on which the taxi- 

 dermist should exercise his skill, so that I might retain a 

 memento of my sojourn on the Maryland swamp -washed 

 shores of the Chesapeake. The weather had been very 

 variable, jumping, with those sudden changes peculiar to- 

 America, from intense cold to almost gulf-stream tempera- 

 ture : the result was that for one or two days all sheltered 

 portions of the bay would be ice-bound, and the succeeding 

 days the surface of the water covered with little bergs and 

 sheet-ice like an arctic flow. 



The 12th of February had been as balmy as an English 

 spring day, and the rays of the sun were reflected in 

 innumerable colours off the prismatic surface of the blocks- 

 and cakes of ice floating seaward with the retiring tide. 

 The pongeys and canoes emyloyed in oyster dredging 

 floated listlessly on the bosom of the calm water, for not 

 a breath of wind fanned their snow-white cotton sails - r 

 even so still was the atmosphere, that their crews' voices 

 could be heard distinctly at distances really surprising ; 

 while the low land of Turtle-egg Island, Holland and 

 Hooper's island, from the rarified state of the atmosphere, 

 appeared to hang suspended in the air. I had passed the 

 afternoon lounging on the beach in front of the principal 

 store on Devil's Island, a spot which was the favourite 

 resort of old and young, who had time to spare for gossip. 



