A Paradise of Birds 



quickly coming and going to a nearby stream, 

 and in a few minutes get them all together 

 and proudly sail away. 



Sometimes a flock of swans were seen passing 

 over at a great height on their long journeys, 

 and we admired their clear bugle notes, but 

 they seldom visited any of the lakes in our 

 neighborhood, so seldom that when they did 

 it was talked of for years. One was shot by 

 a blacksmith on a millpond with a long-range 

 Sharp's rifle, and many of the neighbors went 

 far to see it. 



The common gray goose, Canada honker, 

 flying in regular harrow-shaped flocks, was one 

 of the wildest and wariest of all the large birds 

 that enlivened the spring and autumn. They 

 seldom ventured to alight in our small lake, 

 fearing, I suppose, that hunters might be con- 

 cealed in the rushes, but on account of their 

 fondness for the young leaves of winter wheat 

 when they were a few inches high, they often 

 alighted on our fields when passing on their 

 way south, and occasionally even in our corn- 



