WADING BIRDS. 239 



plumage, buoyant in flight, active, and untiring on the 

 ground. Then their movements appear to be guided 

 entirely by impulse, while many of the species evince 

 a love for their companions so powerful that, sooner 

 than forsake their dead and wounded comrades, they 

 will remain hovering over the spot where they have 

 fallen, till the irresistible shot has decimated in the 

 most wholesale manner their well- organized ranks. 



Cobb's Island, near the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, 

 is one of their most favoured haunts ; in fact, all the 

 islands and beaches along the coast of New Jersey were 

 little less frequented, but, from being easier of access 

 to the dwellers in the neighbouring large cities, the 

 birds of late years have betaken themselves to the less- 

 frequented resting-place. However, they are soon 

 threatened with expulsion from Cobb's Island, for an 

 hotel, for the accommodation of sportsmen, has been 

 built upon its sterile .shores, and the Atlantic breakers 

 that guard its surf-beaten coast listen, with murmuring 

 dissatisfaction, to the constant repeated echoes of the 

 report of fire-arms, which are decimating the graceful 

 beauties that in years gone by were permitted in peace 

 to glide over the bosom of old Father Ocean. 



Strictly migratory, what an enjoyable life they must 

 lead here to-day, gone to-morrow; one week skim- 

 ming the waters that skirt the sunny shores of Florida, 

 the next seeking their food on the spongy verdant 

 uplands of Labrador : in the former wakened from 

 their reveries or slumbers by the approach of the 

 stealthy alligator or clumsy turtle, in the latter by the 

 deep growl of the Arctic bear, or the sudden dash into 

 their ranks of the stealthy blue fox. Then the 

 scenes they see, traversing the ocean the overfreighted 



