Song Birds and Water Fowl 



to the day's blank page. But the end was not 

 yet. Sauntering along, I asked the first person 

 I met how far it was to the station, thinking it 

 might be a five minutes' walk. My lower jaw 

 dropped in amazement when he replied, " Four 

 miles ! ' ' — with fifty-one minutes to do it in, 

 after a hard day's tramp, and by an unfamiliar 

 and circuitous route. He unconsciously rubbed 

 in the agony by adding that, if I had come ten 

 minutes sooner, I might have ridden all the way. 

 It was the last train ; I felt as if I were escaping 

 from a plague-stricken district, and, by an im- 

 promptu system of rapid transit, I reached the 

 station, with two minutes to spare. This was in 

 the town of Islip, of which I had only a glimpse, 

 but it sufficed to take away much of the bad 

 taste of the day. With the verdure of an Eng- 

 lish landscape, dotted with comfortable colonial 

 houses, this town is the type of many along the 

 South Shore. • But with all my zeal for water 

 fowl, I doubt whether a whole flock of little 

 white herons would tempt me to repeat my ex- 

 perience at Chautauqua Landing. 



Do butterflies ever migrate? If they do, 

 there was certainly a " wave " of them at Cape 



i88 



