CHAPTER I. 
Man and the Migratory Birds. An Ocean Voyage in Mid-winter. A 
Wasted Snow Storm. .A Model Steamer. Savannah. A Pleasant run be- 
tween the Sea-Islands and the Mainiand. The Cumberland Islands. Dun- 
genness, St. Mary. Fernandina and its Amelia Beach. Arrival at Jack- 
sonville. Crossing the Gulf Stream. Landing at Nassau. 
‘The sails were filled, and fair the light winds blew, 
As pleased to waft him trom his native land..—Byron. 
Nature’s special favorites are the birds. With the speed of 
the wind, and a flight almost as noiseless, they ever follow Sum- 
mer where she leads, bask in her sunlight, and repose in her 
grateful shadows. As Winter, snow-clad and frozen, advances 
or retreats, they follow in his footsteps, and sport in the forests of 
verdure, and in the fields and bowers of bloom, that soon clothe 
his track of desolation with wondrous beauty. 
What nature denied, man has acquired for himself—a speed 
superior to thas of the birds and outstripping the wind. His 
thoughts travel with the lightning, and, practically, space is 
almost annihilated by his steam chariots upon iron roads. 
Science, meanwhile, has explored and mapped the great ocean 
world, sounded its profoundest depths, discovered and described 
its shoals and rocks and winding shores, and, wedded to mechan- 
ical ingenuity, has enabled man, in the glowing language of the 
east, to *‘take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost 
parts of the earth.” 
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