t
is. I myself saw a young gentleman stand on the deck of an excursion
steamer, with a rifle, and do his worst to kill or maim every living
thing that came in sight, from a spotted sandpiper to a turkey buzzard!
I call him a "gentleman;" he was in gentle company, and the fact that he
chewed gum industriously would, I fear, hardly invalidate his claim to
that title. The narrow river wound in and out between low, densely
wooded banks, and the beauty of the shifting scene was enough almost to
take one's breath away; but the crack of the rifle was not the less
frequent on that account. Perhaps the sportsman was a Southerner, to
whom river scenery of that enchanting kind was an old story. More likely
he was a Northerner, one of the men who thank Heaven they are "not
sentimental."

In my rambles up and down the river road I saw few water birds beside
the herons. Two or three solitary cormorants would be shooting back and
forth at a furious rate, or swimming in midstream; and sometimes a few
spotted sandpipers and killdeer plovers were feeding along the shore.
Once in a great while a single gull or tern made its appearance,--just
often enough to keep me wondering why they were not there oftener,--and
one day a water turkey went suddenly over my head and dropped into the
river on the farther side of the island. I was glad to see this
interesting creature for once in salt water; for the Hillsborough, like
the Halifax and the Indian rivers, is a river in name only,--a river by
brevet,--being, in fact, a salt-water lagoon or sound between the
mainland and the eastern peninsula.

Fish-hawks were always in sight, and bald eagles were seldom absent
altogether. Sometimes an eagle stood perched on a dead tree on an
island. Oftener I heard a scream, and looked up to see one sailing far
overhead, or chasing an osprey. On one such occasion, when the hawk
seemed to be making a losing fight, a third bird suddenly intervened,
and the eagle, as I thought, was driven away. "Good for the brotherhood
of fish-hawks!" I exclaimed. But at that moment I put my glass on the
new-comer; and behold, he was not a hawk, but another eagle. Meanwhile
the hawk had disappeared with his fish, and I was left to ponder the
mystery.

As for the wood, the edge of the hammock, through which the road passes,
there were no birds in it. It was one of those places (I fancy every
bird-gazer must have had experience of such) where it is a waste of time
to seek them.