A LONG PROCESSION 



ined to be true in such cases (though nobody has 

 proved it, so far as I heard), may have been mov- 

 ing in a wide circle, — a circle so very wide that 

 its visible arc at a little distance had all the ap- 

 pearance of a straight line, so that the same birds, 

 quartering the sea in search of prey, may have 

 passed my station more than once in the six 

 hours. But, figure the affair as you will, the num- 

 ber remains sufficiently amazing. 



At Lighthouse Point, by the by, I discovered 

 that my " small white birds " were neither sand- 

 pipers nor plovers, but phalaropes. A dozen or 

 so were feeding in a pool of fresh water at my 

 back, and great numbers could be seen resting 

 upon the ocean a little offshore, while now and 

 then a bird would pass from one group to the 

 other. When you see a flock of small sandpipers 

 swimming, you may know they are not sandpipers. 



And it occurs to me as I write that while I 

 stood there listening to the thunders of the surf 

 and gazing upon this interminable line of shear- 

 waters, I saw all unexpectedly, for the first and 

 only time, one of the most showily decorated of 

 all water-birds, a tufted puffin. The wonderful 

 creature flew past me, close in, pushing before 

 him that prodigiously large and brilliantly colored 

 triangular red bill ; a bill designed for ornament 

 rather than use, one would say, to look at it, awk- 

 77 



