A NATURALIST. Ill 



bank or bluff, twenty or thirty feet high, crowned 

 with a dense young pine-forest to its very edge. 

 Almost directly opposite, the shore was flat, and 

 formed a point, extending, in the form of a broad 

 sand-bar, for a considerable distance into the water; 

 and, when the tide was low, this flat afforded a fine 

 level space, to which nothing could approach in 

 either direction without being easily seen. At a 

 short distance from the water, a young swamp-wood 

 of maple, gum, oaks, etc. extended back towards 

 some higher ground. As the sun descended, and 

 threw his last rays in one broad sheet of golden 

 effulgence over the crystal mirror of the waters, 

 innumerable companies of crows arrived daily, and 

 settled on this point, for the purpose of drinking, 

 picking up gravel, and uniting in one body prior to 

 retiring for the night to their accustomed dormitory. 

 The trees adjacent and all the shore would be lite- 

 rally blackened by these plumed marauders, while 

 their increasing outcries, chattering, and screams, 

 were almost deafening. It certainly seems that they 

 derive great pleasure from their social habits; and I 

 often amused myself by thinking the uninterrupted 

 clatter which was kept up, as the different gangs 

 united with the main body, was produced by the 

 recital of the adventures they had encountered 

 during their last marauding excursions. As the 

 sun became entirely sunk below the horizon, the 

 grand flock crossed to the sand-bluff on the opposite 

 side, where they generally spent a few moments in 

 picking up a farther supply of gravel, and then, 



