APRIL. 93 



The practically deserted river is more a relic of the 

 past than an important factor of the present; for al- 

 though its shores have been occupied by man a hundred 

 centuries or more, probably never until now has the stream 

 itself proved of so little use. To be sure, it is the conven- 

 ient sewer of up-river towns and the sweet- water supply 

 of the larger cities below ; but this counts for little, and 

 even the fishing interest is next to nothing. The fond 

 hope of many an angler, that the salmon might be intro- 

 duced, can never be realized, so unutterably filthy is the 

 tidal portion of the river for fully a hundred miles from 

 the ocean. Such an ordeal is too much for this lordly 

 fish ; and we can only wonder that the delicate shad is 

 not like-minded. But our quest concerned the shores, 

 and not the stream, for bushes and small birds have- not 

 yet been exterminated. Migrating warblers were the 

 prime object of our all-day tramp ; to see and hear them, 

 if Fate willed it so ; and, as may be inferred, Fate did not 

 will it. We saw but twenty-one kinds of birds, only three 

 of which were warblers ; and not one of the whole series 

 but was, that same day, far more abundant at home than 

 here upon the rocky river shore. 



For want of suggestive material, we had to abandon 

 ornithological field-work for more prosaic pastime, and I 

 ventured upon the dangerous ground of pre-eminently 

 ancient man. Very persuasively, as I thought, I dis- 

 coursed on the palaeolithic implement we found on the 

 gravelly shore, but the significance, as I hold it, of such 

 rudely fractured stone was not made apparent. There 

 was ominously little said in reply when I closed my argu- 

 ment, but the immovable countenance and far-off look of 

 my companion's eyes told me that, like the river before us, 

 not by the breadth of a hair had the current of his 

 thoughts been changed. 



Twenty-one species of birds only, we felt, were not of 



