Song Birds and Water Fowl 



mal name is, to the popular mind, an emblem 

 of all that is desolate and forbidding, the or- 

 nithologist cannot fail, sometimes, to cast a 

 wistful glance in that frigid direction, where so 

 many of his favorite species are truly wasting 

 their sweetness on the desert air — the fox spar- 

 row, snow bunting, lark, redpoll linnet, pine 

 finch and crossbill; not to mention golden 

 plover and other dainty water fowl, the silent 

 members of the winged fraternity. 



The curvature of the earth in general is eight 

 inches to the mile. But, excepting on its north 

 shore. Long Island is an exception, where the 

 terrestrial convexity cannot exceed one-thirty- 

 second of an inch to the mile, as any traveller 

 will be convinced who takes a trip from Brook- 

 lyn to Montauk Point. This unutterable flat- 

 ness, while destructive to all interior scenery, af- 

 fords ample compensation in the glorious beaches 

 along the south shore, extending for miles in an 

 unbroken stretch, ornamented with the ocean's 

 fringe of breakers — a scarf that binds together 

 sea and land, a cincture of live foam to girdle 

 all the continents. There is more savage grand- 

 eur and wildness, to stir the blood, on some 

 precipitous coast, where towers 

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