n yesterday."

So much for December, 1887. Its unexpected good behavior would seem to
have made a profound impression upon me; no doubt I promised never to
forget it; yet twelve months later traditionary notions had resumed
their customary sway, and every pleasant morning took me by surprise.

The winter of 1888-89 will long be famous in the ornithological annals
of New England as the winter of killdeer plovers. I have mentioned the
great storm of November 25th-27th. On the first pleasant morning
afterwards--on the 28th, that is--my out-of-door comrade and I made an
excursion to Nahant. The land-breeze had already beaten down the surf,
and the turmoil of the waters was in great part stilled; but the beach
was strewn with sea-weeds and eel-grass, and withal presented quite a
holiday appearance. From one motive and another, a considerable
proportion of the inhabitants of the city had turned out. The principal
attraction, as far as we could perceive, was a certain big clam, of
which great numbers had been cast up by the tide. Baskets and wagons
were being filled; some of the men carried off shells and all, while
others, with a celerity which must have been the result of much
practice, were cutting out the plump dark bodies, leaving the shells in
heaps upon the sand. The collectors of these molluscan dainties knew
them as quahaugs, and esteemed them accordingly; but my companion, a
connoisseur in such matters, pronounced them not the true quahaug
(_Venus mercenaria_,--what a profanely ill-sorted name, even for a
bivalve!) but the larger and coarser _Cyprina islandica_. The man to
whom we imparted this precious bit of esoteric lore received it like a
gentleman, if I cannot add like a scholar. "We _call_ them quahaugs," he
answered, with an accent of polite deprecation, as if it were not in the
least to be wondered at that he should be found in the wrong. It was
evident, at the same time, that the question of a name did not strike
him as of any vital consequence. _Venus mercenaria_ or _Cyprina
islandica_, the savoriness of the chowder was not likely to be seriously
affected.

It was good, I thought, to see so many people out-of-doors. Most of them
had employment in the shops, probably, and on grounds of simple economy,
so called, would have been wiser to have stuck to their lasts. But man,
after all that civilization has done for him (and against him), remains
at heart a child of nature. His ancestors may have been shoemake