As fresh aud vital as the color was the breath 

 of the marsh. There is no bank of violets steal- 

 ing and giving half so sweet an odor to my nos- 

 trils, outraged by a winter of city smells, as the 

 salty, spray -laden breath of the marsh. It seems 

 fairly to line the kings with ozone. I know how 

 grass-fed cattle feel at the smell of salt. I have 

 the concentrated thirst of a whole herd when I 

 catch that first whiif of the marshes after a win- 

 ter, a year it may be, of unsalted inland air. 

 The smell of it stampedes me. I gallop to meet 

 it, and drink, drink, drink deep of it, my blood 

 running redder with every draught. 



II 



I HAD waded out into the meadow perhaps 

 two hundred yards, leaving a dark bruised trail 

 in the grass, when I came upon a nest of the 

 long-billed marsh-wren. It was a bulky house, 

 and so overburdened its frail sedge supports that 

 it lay almost upon the ground, with its little 

 round doorway wide open to the sun and rain. 

 They must have been a young couple who built 

 it, and quite inexperienced. I wonder they had 

 [54] 



