the ice that covered the small pond back of the beach. I
put up my glass and said to myself, "A killdeer plover!" There proved to
be two birds. They would not suffer me within gunshot,--though I carried
no gun,--but flew off into some ploughed ground, with their usual loud
vociferations. (The killdeer is aptly named _Aegialitis vocifera_.)

[4] Mr. N. C. Brown, in _The Auk_, January, 1889, page 69.

[5] It seems probable that the birds started from some point in the
Southern States for a long southward flight, or perhaps for the West
Indies, on the evening of November 24th, and on getting out to sea were
caught by the great gale, which whirled them northward over the
Atlantic, landing them--such of them, that is, as were not drowned on
the way--upon the coast of New England. The grounds for such an opinion
are set forth by Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne in _The Auk_ for July, 1889,
page 255.

During the month with the history of which we are now especially
concerned, I saw nothing more of them; but by way of completing the
story I may add that on the 28th of January, in the same spot, I found a
flock of seven, and there they remained. I visited them four times in
February and once in March, and found them invariably in the same place.
Evidently they had no idea of making another attempt to reach the West
Indies for _this_ season; and if they were to remain in our latitude,
they could hardly have selected a more desirable location. The marsh, or
meadow, was sheltered and sunny, while the best protected corner was at
the same time one of those peculiarly springy spots in which the grass
keeps green the winter through. Here, then, these seven wayfarers
stayed week after week. Whenever I stole up cautiously and peeped over
the bank into their verdant hiding-place, I was sure to hear the
familiar cry; and directly one bird, and then another, and another,
would start up before me, disclosing the characteristic brown feathers
of the lower back. They commonly assembled in the middle of the marsh
upon the snow or ice, where they stood for a little, bobbing their heads
in mutual conference, and then flew off over the house and over the
orchard, calling as they flew.

Throughout December, and indeed throughout the winter, brown creepers
and red-bellied nuthatches were surprisingly abundant. Every pine wood
seemed to have its colony of them. Whether the extraordinary mildness of
the season had anything to do with this I cannot say; b