164 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the road. Pine trees are everywhere, and from their needles 

 great crested flycatchers scream and tiny gnatcatchers twang 

 their little ditties. In every field are young birds just out of the 

 nest, calling for food, or struggling with the rudiments of flight. 

 Through and around the whole scene the songs of mocking- 

 birds come to us. Before passing out of earshot of some master 

 singer whose melody absorbs our whole attention, another song- 

 ster comes within hearing, pouring out a low, soft murmuring, 

 like the undertone of humming insects in our northern fields. 

 The cares of nesting and feeding the young had not silenced 

 these superb musicians. 



The fauna of the southern part of the small peninsula compris- 

 ing Northampton County is interesting as being included in the 

 Louisiana faunal area, so that although so far north, such typi- 

 cally southern birds as the yellow-throated warbler and brown- 

 headed nuthatch are found here in summer. 



After breakfast at the home of the guide, we leave the pines 

 behind- us, and passing through lines of fig-trees, covered with 

 their ripening fruit, we reach the marshy shore. Here a hun- 

 dred yards of wading is necessary to reach aiowboat, and a half 

 mile of poling before we can climb on board the sixty-foot 

 schooner, or "bug-eye" as the Virginians call it. 



Then follows an eighteen-mile sail through scenes as interest- 

 ing as they are novel to us. We thread our way past island after 

 island, some dry and covered with gnarled cedars where herons 

 nest, or a few scattered pines on whose topmost branches ospreys 

 have piled their cartload of sticks. Marsh-grass of every imag- 

 inable shade of green covers other islands, along whose edges 

 mud-flats begin to glisten as the tide leaves them exposed. Cur- 

 lews, gulls and rails run back and forth, and probe for worms and 

 snails. 



As the afternoon passes, whiffs of salt air, fresh from the ocean, 

 come to us, and soon we catch glimpses of sandy beaches and 

 dunes. Twilight begins to close around us as we drop anchor in 

 Loon Channel, just abreast of the Life-Saving Station on Cobb 

 Island. This is the island we are to study, and we will never for- 

 get our first view of it. The western sky still glows dull red, the 

 eastern is a mass of black storm-clouds, sending out fierce gusts 

 which moan through the rigging as we eat our supper in the 

 schooner's cabin. Most vivid lightning plays about us, and shows 

 the tossing marsh-grass and swirling sand of the island near by. 

 The staunch little boat tugs at her anchor as the black tide rushes 

 past straight from the sea, and every now and then a curious 



