MELLOW ENGLAND. 



137 



where I saw his feathers rudely ruffled by the wind, 

 till darkness set in. If the sailors did not disturb him 

 during the night, he certainly needed all his fortitude 

 in the morning to put a cheerful face on his situation. 



The third day, when we were perhaps off Nova Scotia 

 or Newfoundland, the American pipit or tit-lark, from 

 the far North, a brown bird about the size of a sparrow, 

 dropped upon the deck of the ship, so nearly exhausted, 

 that one of the sailors was on the point of covering it 

 with his hat. It stayed about the vessel nearly all day, 

 flitting from point to point, or hopping along a few feet 

 in front of the promenaders, and prying into every 

 crack and crevice for food. Time after time I saw it 

 start off with a reassuring chirp, as if determined to 

 seek the land, but before it had got many rods from the 

 ship its head would seem to fail it, and after circling 

 about for a few moments, back it would come, more 

 discouraged than ever. 



These little waifs from the shore ! I gazed upon them 

 with a strange, sad interest. They were friends in dis- 

 tress, but the sea-birds, skimming along indifferent to 

 US; or darting in and out among those watery hills, I 

 seemed to look upon as my natural enemies. They 

 were the nurslings and favorites of the sea, and I had 

 no sympathy with them. 



No doubt the number of our land birds that actually 

 perish in the sea during their autumn migration, being 

 carried far out of their course by the prevailing westerly 

 winds of this season, is very great. Occasionally one 



