224 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



A word as to their numbers : we have all heard of 

 those wonderful flights of passenger pigeons, that, like 

 the clouds of a summer shower, obscure the sun for 

 hours. Nothing like them is now to be seen in this 

 valley ; but a year ago, while near the starting - point 

 of this day's journey, I witnessed the passage of a vast 

 throng of redwings, which, if it did not wholly shut out 

 the sun, at least cast an enormous and well-defined 

 shadow. 



Their numbers can only be estimated ; but allowing 

 one bird to every square foot of surface as they flew, 

 there was certainly an acre of them. I think it is safe 

 to say that there were fifty thousand birds in the flock. 



Before I had passed a hundred yards down stream I 

 rounded an abrupt bend in the creek, and all that re- 

 mains of a once busy spot came into view. 



The unceasing tides for more than two centuries have 

 ebbed and flowed since a thrifty young Englishman 

 traced the half-hidden Indian path that led to the up- 

 lands, then a gloomy forest, and discovered amid a wil- 

 derness of undergrowth a noble spring issuing from the 

 low bluff a few rods distant. 



Here, he thought, of all points between the river and 

 the back country is the one whereat to build a wharf ; 

 and before half a decade it was ready to receive the 

 passing shallops, and his own were being builded. 



At low tide to-day I saw several of the old wharf 

 logs still in place. But could this pioneer merchant of 

 the Crosswicks valley return, he would scarcely recog- 

 nize the site of the "landing," as it was then called. 



