An August Reverie. 213 



year and place. It was near here, not many years 

 ago, that I sat upon a sand dune to eat my lunch, 

 and became so interested in throwing bits of bread 

 and meat to the fearless terns that I went away, at 

 last, hungry, having thrown all of my lunch to 

 the birds. I remember an eccentric druggist who 

 placed a stuffed nsh-hawk over his counter, and 

 the next spring a taxidermist near by had orders 

 for a score of skins. To the credit of one wise 

 man in the village, be it recorded, the law inter- 

 fered ; but who ever heard of the law protecting 

 a wren or a bluebird? In some one of the 

 forthcoming dictionaries let the compound word 

 " dead-letter" be defined as " the law protecting 

 useful birds." 



As it neared high noon, the expected happened. 

 Birds came trooping in, and every one on the 

 same errand, — to take life easily. At times they 

 were absurdly distributed, a;id recalled the com- 

 partment bird-cages in a menagerie. But inborn 

 restlessness soon changed all this, and their noon- 

 ing became as active as a morning hunt, but in a 

 different way. The rippling water below them 

 was a constant attraction, and from the tree to 



