r in the sunny grass,
Catching his heart up at the feel of June."

But they had done well, surely, to weather the recent snow-storm and the
low temperature; for the mercury had been down to 10 deg. within a
fortnight, and a large snow-bank was still in sight against the wall.
Suddenly a close flock of eight or ten birds flew past us and
disappeared behind the hill. "Pigeons?" said my companion. I thought
not; they were sea-birds of some kind. Soon we heard killdeer cries from
the beach, and, looking up, saw the birds, three of them, alighting on
the sand. We started down the hill in haste, but just at that moment an
old woman, a miserable gatherer of drift rubbish, walked directly upon
them, and they made off. Then we saw that our "pigeons," or "sea-birds,"
had been nothing but killdeer plovers, which, like other long-winged
birds, look much larger in the air than when at rest. Returning towards
Lynn, later in the afternoon, we came upon the same three birds again;
this time feeding among the boulders at the end of the beach. We
remarked once more their curious, silly-looking custom of standing
stock-still with heads indrawn. But our own attitudes, as we also stood
stock-still with glasses raised, may have looked, in their eyes, even
more singular and meaningless. As we turned away--after flushing them
two or three times to get a view of their pretty cinnamon
rump-feathers--a sportsman came up, and proved to be the very man on
whose belt we had seen our first killdeers, a week before. We left him
doing his best to bag these three also. He will never read what I write,
and I need not scruple to confess that, seeing his approach, we
purposely startled the birds as badly as possible, hoping to see them
make off over the hill, out of harm's way. But the foolish creatures
could not take the hint, and alighted again within a few rods, at the
same time calling loudly enough to attract the attention of the gunner,
who up to this moment had not been aware of their presence. He fired
twice before we got out of sight, but, to judge from his motions,
without success. A man's happiness is perhaps of more value than a
plover's, though I do not see how we are to prove it; but my sympathies,
then as always, were with the birds.

Within a week or so I received a letter from Mrs. Celia Thaxter,
together with a wing, a foot, and one cinnamon feather. "By this wing
which I send you," she began, "can you tell me the name of the bird t