114 COMMON BIRDS. 



officer,* with jetty plumage and flashing epaulets of red 

 and yellow, chatter round the marshy pools. Or a few 

 steps from the sylvan gloom probably bring one to 

 the bright shore of some lake, where the rippling waves 

 murmur with refreshing sound on the sandy beach. 

 Many a mid- day siesta have I thus enjoyed, and whiled 

 away many a happy hour on the shores of Erie and of 

 Ontario, gazing with untiring delight on the calm blue 

 surface of the water, dotted here and there with a lazy 

 sail, and mingling the heated haze of its distant horizon 

 with the cloudless summer sky. 



A peculiarity of these lake shores is the great number 

 of Sandpipers, and the large proportion of Ravens that 

 are at times to be seen there — ^the former running along 

 the beach in large flocks, and the latter, after every 

 storm or breeze, busily picking among the weeds and 

 rubbish, or devouring the dead fish cast up by the 

 waters; crows being comparatively rare birds. The 

 Canadian crow, by the way, is smaller than ours, and 

 has a different note. 



It is not necessary, however, to enlarge upon the 

 general ornithology of Canada; but before passing on to 

 the more important divisions of it which the present work 

 professes to describe, it may not be out of place to 



* Agelaius phoeniceus. 



