Louisiana Heron
Pied Oyster-Catcher
Whooping Crane
Long billed Curlew
On the sea-beach of Cape May, not far from a deep and rapid inlet, I broke the wing of one of these birds, and being without a dog, instantly pursued it towards the inlet, which it made for with great rapidity. We both plunged in nearly at the same instant; but the bird eluded my grasp, and I sunk beyond my depth; it was not until this moment that I recollected having carried in my gun along with me. On rising to the surface, I found the bird had dived, and a strong ebb current was carrying me fast towards the ocean, encumbered with a gun and all my shooting apparatus. I was compelled to relinquish my bird, and to make for the shore, with considerable mortification, and the total destruction of the contents of my power-horn. The wounded bird afterwards rose, and swam with great buoyancy out among the breakers.
Whooping Crane
This is the tallest and most stately species of all the feathered tribes of the United States, the watchful inhabitant of extensive salt marshes, desolate swamps, and open morasses in the neighbourhood of the sea. Its migrations are regular, and of the most extensive kind, reaching from the shores and inundated tracts of South America to the arctic circle. In these immense periodical journeys, they pass at such a prodigious height in the air as to be seldom observed.
