A VISITATION OF SWANS 



what goes on above their level. A flock of cur- 

 lews, for example, feeding, heads down, upon the 

 sand, will discover you instantly on the edge of 

 a cliff overlooking the beach, say at an elevation 

 of fifty feet, and be off on the wing almost before 

 you know it, no matter how slow and noiseless 

 your approach may have been ; whereas, had you 

 been walking on the beach itself, in full sight, 

 the chances are that they would have suffered 

 you to come moderately close upon them with- 

 out betraying any marked uneasiness. It has be- 

 come a habit with them, apparently, to keep a 

 sharp lookout upward, perhaps because their more 

 usual enemies come from that quarter. 



This, however, can hardly be true of swans, 

 whose principal apprehensions, I should think, 

 must be of rapacious quadrupeds. As for their 

 superior sight or hearing, there is no sort of bird, 

 we may safely say, but excels us in some respect, 

 clever as we think ourselves. The Powers above 

 have not put everything of the best into any one 

 basket. Every creature has its own particular 

 endowment, and presumably, living for itself, re- 

 gards itself as the sum and centre of all things. 

 Mankind, if we may guess, holds no monopoly, 

 even of self-conceit. 



On my return at noon, — for I commonly went 

 two miles or so beyond the lake to the ocean 

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