280 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



cloo-moose : the "bird that never rests." The name is 

 much more applicable to the barn swallow. While rest- 

 ing one siuiny afternoon in the shadow of the bridge, 

 my attention was called to these birds, and I noticed 

 that they dipped into the water very frequently, and 

 always at one spot, where the wild - rice grew closely 

 to the edge of the channel. Believing that they were 

 in search of food, I concealed myself in the rice and 

 watched the birds as well as circumstances would allow. 

 Their movements were too quick to enable one to be 

 positive, but I think they ^^artly dived rather than mere- 

 ly dipped, and caught each time a very small fish ; for 

 at this place there were literally thousands of minute 

 minnows crowding a limited space, and so near the sur- 

 face of the water as to faintly ripple it. 



The impenetrable tangle of blackberry briers, dwarfed 

 trees, wild-rose, and smilax that covers much of the bank 

 on the creek's north shore below the bridge is a favorite 

 locality for winter sparrows, and so too of shrikes. Were 

 the latter more abundantly represented a century ago 

 than now ? In an interesting letter from the Moravian 

 missionary Heckewelder to Dr. Barton, dated December 

 18, 1795, I find the following : " I went to a farm . . . 

 to visit a young orchard . . . where on viewing the 

 trees I found, to my great astonishment, almost on every 

 one of them one, and on some two and three grasshop- 

 pers, stuck down on the sharp thorny branches, which 

 were not pruned when the trees were planted. I . . . 

 was informed that these grasshoppers were stuck up by 

 a small bird of prey which the Germans called Nexin- 

 toedter . . . that this bird had a practice of catching 



