a dragon-fly, the first big one for a
gray plover. The flight is almost exactly like that of a quail or
partridge--flight, I must say; for, in spite of all that has been
learnedly written to the contrary, it was too difficult as yet for
the English sportsmen on board to believe that their motion was not
a true flight, aided by the vibration of the wings, and not a mere
impulse given (as in the leap of the salmon) by a rush under water.
That they can change their course at will is plain to one who looks
down on them from the lofty deck, and still more from the paddle-
box. The length of the flight seems too great to be attributed to a
few strokes of the tail; while the plain fact that they renew their
flight after touching, and only touching, the surface, would seem to
show that it was not due only to the original impetus, for that
would be retarded, instead of being quickened, every time they
touched. Such were our first impressions: and they were confirmed
by what we saw on the voyage home.

The nights as yet, we will not say disappointed us,--for to see new
stars, like Canopus and Fomalhaut, shining in the far south, even to
see Sirius, in his ever-changing blaze of red and blue, riding high
in a December heaven, is interesting enough; but the brilliance of
the stars is not, at least at this season, equal to that of a frosty
sky in England. Nevertheless, to make up for the deficiency, the
clouds were glorious; so glorious, that I longed again and again, as
I did afterwards in the West Indies, that Mr. Ruskin were by my
side, to see and to describe, as none but he can do. The evening
skies are fit weeds for widowed Eos weeping over the dying Sun;
thin, formless, rent--in carelessness, not in rage; and of all the
hues of early autumn leaves, purple and brown, with green and
primrose lakes of air between: but all hues weakened, mingled,
chastened into loneliness, tenderness, regretfulness, through which
still shines, in endless vistas of clear western light, the hope of
the returning day. More and more faint, the pageant fades below
towards the white haze of the horizon, where, in sharpest contrast,
leaps and welters against it the black jagged sea; and richer and
richer it glows upwards, till it cuts the azure overhead: until,
only too soon--

'The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out,
At one stride comes the dark,'

to be succeeded, after the long balmy night, by a s