take one's breath away; but the crack of the rifle was not the less
frequent on that account. Perhaps the sportsman was a Southerner, to
whom river scenery of that enchanting kind was an old story. More likely
he was a Northerner, one of the men who thank Heaven they are "not
sentimental."

In my rambles up and down the river road I saw few water birds beside
the herons. Two or three solitary cormorants would be shooting back and
forth at a furious rate, or swimming in midstream; and sometimes a few
spotted sandpipers and killdeer plovers were feeding along the shore.
Once in a great while a single gull or tern made its appearance,--just
often enough to keep me wondering why they were not there oftener,--and
one day a water turkey went suddenly over my head and dropped into the
river on the farther side of the island. I was glad to see this
interesting creature for once in salt water; for the Hillsborough, like
the Halifax and the Indian rivers, is a river in name only,--a river by
brevet,--being, in fact, a salt-water lagoon or sound between the
mainland and the eastern peninsula.

Fish-hawks were always in sight, and bald eagles were seldom absent
altogether. Sometimes an eagle stood perched on a dead tree on an
island. Oftener I heard a scream, and looked up to see one sailing far
overhead, or chasing an osprey. On one such occasion, when the hawk
seemed to be making a losing fight, a third bird suddenly intervened,
and the eagle, as I thought, was driven away. "Good for the brotherhood
of fish-hawks!" I exclaimed. But at that moment I put my glass on the
new-comer; and behold, he was not a hawk, but another eagle. Meanwhile
the hawk had disappeared with his fish, and I was left to ponder the
mystery.