before the owner of the soil, but make him feel like an intruder on its
domains. And then its retreat, sailing so steadily away, is a kind of
advance. I have by me one of a pair of ospreys, which have for some years
fished in this vicinity, shot by a neighboring pond, measuring more than
two feet in length, and six in the stretch of its wings. Nuttall mentions
that "The ancients, particularly Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys
taught their young to gaze at the sun, and those who were unable to do so
were destroyed. Linnaeus even believed, on ancient authority, that one of
the feet of this bird had all the toes divided, while the other was partly
webbed, so that it could swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the
other." But that educated eye is now dim, and those talons are nerveless.
Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar of the
sea in its wings. There is the tyranny of Jove in its claws, and his wrath
in the erectile feathers of the head and neck. It reminds me of the
Argonautic expedition, and would inspire the dullest to take flight over
Parnassus.

The booming of the bittern, described by Goldsmith and Nuttall, is
frequently heard in our fens, in the morning and evening, sounding like
a pump, or the chopping of wood in a frosty morning in some distant
farm-yard. The manner in which this sound is produced I have not seen
anywhere described. On one occasion, the bird has been seen by one of my
neighbors to thrust its bill into the water, and suck up as much as it
could hold, then raising its head, it pumped it out again with four or
five heaves of the neck, throwing it two or three feet, and making the
sound each time.

At length the summer's eternity is ushered in by the cackle of the flicker
among the oaks on the hill-side, and a new dynasty begins with calm
security.