222 IN BIRD LAND. 



the poor miller's pardon, I felt happy in befriending 

 the charming fairy of a bird. With gladness throb- 

 bing in every corpuscle, it was not in my place to 

 question Nature's economy in making the sacrifice 

 of one life necessary to the sustenance of another. 

 Tramping on, I presently found myself in a marsh 

 stretching back from the river-bank. As I stood in 

 the tangle of tall grass and weeds, listening to the 

 songs and twitters of various birds, the sentiment, 

 if not the precise lines, of Lowell, came to mind hke 

 a draught of invigorating air, — 



"Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift of sight 

 Who cannot in their various incomes share, 

 From every season drawn, of shade and light, 



Who sees in them but levels brown and bare. 

 Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free 



On them its largess of variety, 

 For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders 

 rare.'' 



But what v/as that sharp chirp? It instantly drew 

 my thoughts from the marsh itself and the poet's 

 tribute. Opera-glass in hand, I softly stole near the 

 bushy clump from which the sound came. Ah ! 

 there the bird was, tilting uneasily on a slender twig. 

 The swamp-sparrow ! It was the first time I had 

 positively identified this bird in my own neighbor- 

 hood, — not, I suppose, because it had not been pres- 

 ent often and again, but because I had been too 

 dull of sight to see it. Then came a glad memory. 

 I recalled the peculiar circumstances under which I 

 had seen my first swamp-sparrow, hundreds of miles 



