days together, fly past, within sight of the stands, unshot at, seem to warrant the hope that the hour of the final extinction of his race is very far distant. Taking the Long Island railroad to Greenport in the early part of September, and having encountered and overcome the ordinary delay and difficulty of obtaining a sailboat to further prosecute our voyage, we find ourselves at last gliding on the waves of the beautiful bay, past Shelter and Gardiner’s islands, and approaching the long low line of the Nepeague beach. With a favorable breeze we may expect to be landed on the smooth sand in a little cove, about one mile from our destination, in two hours from our time of departure; but if the wind is adverse and the fates unpropitious, we may have to follow the path to Lester’s in the dark, which will require our best instincts, aided by the guidance of the distant booming of the surf, and the assistance of our especial guardian angel. Once there, however, and we will be repaid for our sufferings; we may find a table covered with “South-side” delicacies, and bearing in the centre a huge dish of beautiful, odorous, melting plover, cooked to a turn, and we will undoubtedly meet kindred spirits and generous sportsmen who are on the same errand as ourselves. As we dispose of the former, the latter will pour into our sympathetic ears wonderful accounts of their sport, and rival one another in recounting the long shots and the good shots they have made, the numbers of birds they have killed, and the pounds of bass they have caught. Under the influences of a delicious supper and moderate “nightcap,” we seek our couch with fond visions of the great flocks, and hopeful dreams that we will do as well on the morrow. At earliest dawn we spring from our bed, and rushing to the primitive little casement have only time to rejoice in the promise of a fine day, ere we note the welcome cry of our noble prey hurrying westward over the beach. To don our shooting costume, to grasp our gun and ammunition, to load ourselves with the basket containing decoys and incidentals, and to emerge into the cool air of the September morning, require but a few minutes; we hasten across the sandy hillocks to our appointed spot, marked by a hollow scooped out for the concealment of former visitants, and by the quantity of feathers and cigar-stumps lying loosely around; and with hands trembling with impatience, we distribute the stools in what seems to us to be the most artistic and seductive manner,--for the birds are now beginning to fly just within a tantalizing yet impracticable range, and we long for action.