188 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



the shades of night are gathering about me, the whistie 

 of the plover far aloft in the heavens, comes to the ear 

 like the voice of some invisible being with a message from 

 another land. The birds of the sea-shore have no song. 

 Nature, who creates nothing in vain, has refrained from 

 giving them musical notes, that would be lost among 

 the discordant sounds which the echoes often strive 

 vainly to repeat, in the deafening confusion of their 

 roar. But the notes of these birds are not all wanting 

 in cheerfulness. The Wittering of the little sand- 

 pipers, that gather about the flats at low tide, is as 

 lively as their motions, and attracts the ear almost as 

 with music, while we watch their peculiarly graceful 

 flight. 



The sea-shore presents many scenes that are favor- 

 able to meditation ; and the voices of the waves seem 

 to have borrowed a pensive tone from the disasters they 

 have witnessed, when the tempest has driven upon the 

 rocks, and mercilessly dashed to pieces the vessel that 

 struggled against their power. Not the least interest- 

 ing objects of the sea-shore are those which are bor- 

 rowed from art, and made charming by their connection 

 with the welfare of man. A little skiff" contending 

 with a rising gale, and just near enough to the shore, to 

 afford an assurance that she will land in safety ; a fleet 

 of joyful sail making headway out to sea, under a gen- 

 tle breeze, with the beams of the morning sun gilding 

 their canvas, and rendering them the more conspicuous, 

 on the blue surface of the deep, are objects ever excit- 

 ing to the sympathies and interesting to the mind. 



Ye charming scenes of grandeur ; ye naked rocks 

 that have battled for thousands of ages with the tem- 

 pest ; ye murmuring billows that charm our ears with 

 the very music of melancholy; ye flowery banks which 



