MELLOW ENGLAND. 153 



consistent with his dignity to alight on the rigging 

 under friendly cover of the tops'l, where I saw hid 

 feathers rudely ruffled by the wind, till darkness set 

 in. If the sailors did not disturb him during the 

 night, he certainly needed all his fortitude in the 

 morning to put a cheerful face on his situation. 



The third day, when we were perhaps off Nova 

 Scotia or Newfoundland, the American pipit or tit- 

 lark, from the far North, a brown bird about the size 

 of a sparrow, dropped upon the deck of the ship, so 

 nearly exhausted that one of the sailors was on the 

 point of covering it with his hat. It stayed about 

 the vessel nearly all day, flitting from point to point, 

 or hopping along a few feet in front of the prom- 

 enaders, and prying into every crack and crevice 

 for food. Time after time I saw it start off with a 

 reassuring chirp, as if determined to seek the land, 

 but before it had got many rods from the ship its 

 heart would seem to fail it, and ifter circling about 

 for a few moments, back it would come, more dis- 

 couraged than ever. 



These little waifs from the shore ! I gazed upon 

 them with a strange, sad interest. They were friends 

 in distress, but the sea-birds, skimming along indiffer- 

 ent to us, or darting in and out among those watery 

 hills, I seemed to look upon as my natural enemies. 

 They were the nurslings and favorites of the sea, and 

 I had no sympathy with them. 



No doubt the number of our land birds that act 

 Ually perish in the sea during their autumn migra 



