Florida trails

The hundreds had dwindled to almost a lone specimen before, just off Charleston, the pelicans came out to look us over. Not a duck did I see till the pelicans had approved us. Then we began to drive out scattered flocks. Perhaps the northwester that had chased us all the way had something to do with it. For it was almost a blizzard out of New York. Up in Central Park the English sparrow, like Keats’s St. Agnes’ Eve owl, for all his feathers was a-cold. The little children of the rich, parading the walks with bare knees, and nurse maids, were blue with the chill and might well envy the little children of the poor for whom the charitable provide stockings. Even out at sea the wind and cold seemed to chill the water till it was made of blue shivers and gooseflesh combers.