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Atlantic; yet even this happens sometimes, they tell 
me. In summer I saw the tender young of the Piping 
Plover, like chickens just hatched, mere pinches of down 
on two legs, running in troops, with a faint peep, along 
the edge of the waves. I used to see packs of half-wild 
dogs haunting the lonely beach on the south shore of 
Staten Island, in New York Bay, for the sake of the 
carrion there cast up; and I remember that once, when 
for a long time I had heard a furious barking in the tall 
grass of the marsh, a pack of half a dozen large dogs 
burst forth on to the beach, pursuing a little one which 
ran straight to me for protection, and I afforded it with 
some stones, though at some risk to myself; but the next 
day the little one was the first to bark at me. Under 
these circumstances I could not but remember the words 
of the poet:— 
“ Blow, blow, thou winter wind 
Thou art not so unkind 
As his ingratitude; 
Thy tooth is not so keen, 
Because thou art not seen, 
Although thy breath be rude. 
“ Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, 
Tnou dost not bite so nigh 
As benefits forgot; 
Though thou the -waters warp, 
Thy sting is not so sharp 
As friend remembered not.” 
Sometimes, when I was approaching the carcass of 
a horse or ox which lay on the beach there, where there 
was no living creature in sight, a dog would unexpect¬ 
edly emerge from it and slink away with a mouthful 
of offal. 
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most 
