Down to the water of the harbor in flocks from 

 the north come other winter visitors, the her- 

 ring and black-backed gulls. Often during the 

 winter I find them in my sky. 



One day they will cross silently over the city 

 in a long straggling line. Again they will fly 

 low, wheeling and screaming, their wild sea- 

 voices shrill with the sound of storm. If it is 

 thick and gray overhead, the snow-white bodies 

 of the herring-gulls toss in the wind above the 

 roofs like patches of foam. I hear the sca- 

 the wind, the surf, the wild, fierce tumult of the 

 shore— whenever the white gulk sail screaming 

 into my winter sky. 



I have never lived under a wider reach of 

 sky than that above my roof. It offers a clear, 

 straight, six-minute course to the swiftest wedge 

 of wild geese. Spring and autumn the geese 

 and ducks go over, and their passage is the 

 most thrilling event in all my bird calendar. 



It is because the ducks fly high and silent 

 that I see them so rarely. They are always a 

 surprise. You look, and there against the dull 

 sky they move, strange dark forms that set your 

 blood leaping. But I never see a string of them 



[14] 



