IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



ingly placed. To the nature-lover from either 

 the aesthetic or the scientific point of view no 

 argument is necessary. The sight of a large 

 flock of cormorants, swinging resistlessly by 

 in steady flight along the New England coast 

 some autumn day when the surf is pounding 

 hard on the reefs and ledges, brings joy to 

 many, and lifts them, for the time at lesist, 

 above the thoughts of mere money-getting. 

 That the cormorant was originally a land-bird 

 and related to the American vultures becomes 

 credible to the scientific nature-lover when he 

 finds that it sometimes builds its bulky nest 

 in a tree, that its young are slow in develop- 

 ing, and that it sits with its wings spread out. 

 There is much to be learned and much to be 

 enjoyed in the study and contemplation of 

 this bird, and one cannot help feeling dis- 

 turbed when wealthy salmon-anglers from the 

 cities on insufficient evidence selfishly con- 

 demn it to possible extinction. 



I hoped to get a taste of another unusual vi- 

 and at Old Romaine, a viand which the captain 

 especially praised and was eager to obtain, — • 

 I refer to the porpoises which from time to 

 time puffed and rolled through our harbor, — 

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