the eclipse, and the play of his lips, as we entered the shadowy pass.

The Filling work of the railroad culminates at Jerry's Run, a tremendous ravine which, coming down from the Alleghanies, throws itself directly across the track of the great iron road as if to thwart the effort of the engineer to find a way across the Apalachian chain; but the man of the theodolite could say with more certainty than did the French monarch of the Pyrenees-Il n'y a plus des Alleghanes. Little by little the extremities of the mountain spurs were cut away and the earth and stones tumbled over into the chasm, and now the train winds along the romantic valley at so dizzy a height above the torrent that it seems a mere thread of silver in the depth of the gorge.

Over

crumbs which bright-aproned housemaids considerately scatter. Twittering canaries, in cages gay with paint or gilding, flutter in the windows, or hang perilously, like Macbeth's banners, "on the outward walls," in every block from the lace-curtained mansions of Murray Hill to the dingy barracks of the Five Points. Sturdy parrots, here and there, amuse themselves and the passing public by posturing with all the gravity of tipsy harlequins, and making eldritch remarks at intervals concerning crackers and other topics of interest. Clear-eyed doves, with pearly plumage, whir gently down from some lofty sheltering roof, glean fearlessly along the unswept pavement, and then, with a soft flutter of wings, flee away again unharmed. Luckless fowls, destined to the spit, support a cheerless existence in rough wooden coops, piled up in markets or in front of butchershops, while in the very heart of the city the wakeful listener, in the small silent hours, rarely fails to catch the "shrill clarion" that echoes from the valorous throat of some chanticleer, held captive within the brick and mortar limits. Mysterious and predatory owls lurked secretly about the smaller parks a year or two ago, and grew aldermanic upon slaughtered sparrows, until the pistols of avenging policemen cut short the sanguinary careers of a dozen of Minerva's prowlers. Even after death the feathered tribes subserve metropolitan purposes beyond their inevitable gastronomic fate, as when an ample stuffed goose, half embedded in the plucked plumage of its fellows, appears in a show-case at some warehouse door as a sign of unrivaled pillows within; or a dozen flame-winged hummingbirds, posed under glass in a glittering a glittering group, attest the skill of some fine-fingered taxidermic artist.

These odds and ends of bird-life suffice to give the city a certain ornithologic standing, happily enhanced by a troop of scattered bird-shops, wherein, at least, all such sage mortals as, Hamlet-fashion, "know a hawk from a hand-saw," may find an entertaining field for curious inspection. A noteworthy shop* of this singular sort lurks in the Chatham street corner of Printing House Square, monopolizing half the ground floor of the middle house in a trio of small and ancient twostoried brick structures, huddled together under the same sloping, shingled, trap-doored roof. On one side mugs of lager, frothy and

*Since this sketch was written, the whirlpool of business has swept away the shop here described, and left no trace of it except this record.

11

brown, are vended almost without ceasing, and on the other a demure "policy shop entices picayune gamblers to stake their hard earnings on lottery chances. Noisy street cars clatter harshly by in an endless chain, and newsboys in turbulent squads jostle each other on the neighboring sidewalk, along which busy wayfarers, with jaded faces, tramp in perpetual procession. Notwithstanding this prosy environment, our little bird-shop maintains, even in its sign-boards, a certain quaint distinction. Across the front the visitor reads, in ordinary black letters, the bird-fancier's name, and the mildly presumptuous legend, "Birds' Emporium," but at each end of this sign and of the smaller one above, inscribed "Importer of Birds," is perched a round, tenantless cage, with rusted wires and weather-beaten paint, while in the middle sits a mummy of a squirrel, with dilapidated fur, and a ridicu lous remnant of a tail still pertly cocked over its forlorn back. The wreck of a parrot cage swings from the hooked end of a slender iron rod, side by side with a green wooden shield-shaped sign, profusely lettered with an inventory of the bird-fancier's wares. A like inscription also appears on the green post between the narrow adjacent doors that give entrance to the separate halves of the building.

Bird-fancying, pure and simple, does not lead to independent fortune with startling rapidity, and hence almost every bird dealer in the city seeks to enlarge his gains by adding to his feathered store numerous other salable bits of nature. Our "birds' emporium" proprietor is no exception to this general rule, as appears from the fine conchological array and the curious compound of aquarium, menagerie and aviary wherewith he baits his commercial hook for passing customers. The "pent-up Utica" of a single show window somewhat confines his powers, and reduces him to the economical expedient of displaying his shells in one of those upright glass cases which thrifty milliners employ for the sidewalk exhibition of marvelous bonnets. Around the top of this modest coffee-colored casket, behind the large panes that form three sides of its upper half, hang a dozen capacious scallop shells, each with its row of mysterious perforations, and all with the rich, glimmering tints of wine when "it giveth its color in the cup." On convenient ledges of tin, painted intensely blue and resembling half a pyramid cut into stairs, pearly "silver shells," tiger-spotted "Turk's caps," and "morexes" as jagged as elks' horns, are

neatly ranged in an iridescent group, with a round, rough, fragile "sea-egg for a snowwhite center-piece. The bottom of the case, about the lower ledge, is evenly strewn an inch deep with tiny specimens, some spiral and pointed, others oval and smooth, some brilliantly scarlet tipped with black, and others delicately brown and checkered as daintily as a dragon-fly's wing. The portrait of a Liliputian Cinderella in a veil of gold lace also appears, ingeniously bordered with fine glossy cones, among half a dozen other shell-work pieces shaped like hearts or diamonds, while, inserted here and there, red roses, not of Nature's making, give a whimsical finish to the picture.

The strange shapes and exquisite colors of these spoils of the sea attract many passing glances, but they cannot compare in fascinating effect with the medley of life and motion revealed in the populous show window. A sharp November wind blows nippingly along the street, and a suspicion of snow is in the air, but for the last ten minutes a stray bit of a tenement-house lassie, in a thin and tattered dress and with a little scarlet shawl drawn tightly over her head, has been gazing in at the window intent and motionless, save for an occasional slight shifting of position and a perpetual caressing of the top of each little bare foot in turn with the sole of the other.

A searching glance behind the four large panes, set in a stout unpainted sash, shows that the room usually devoted to a broad sill is mainly usurped by a rude wooden aquarium, a yard square and twenty inches deep. A narrow space along the front of the sill is garrisoned with a troop of rusty-gray, roselipped conch-shells, while two wire baskets, conchologically filled with rainbow specimens, are pendent in the background. The broad front edge of the tank does duty as a shelf, whereon appears a battalion of gold-fish globes of glass, three of them goblet-shaped and taller than the two small, round intermediate ones, and all of them freshly plenished with sparkling Croton and with handfuls of green and feathery water-plants. In the first of the taller globes half a dozen little fishes with gossamer fins and tails are swiming restlessly around, thrusting their cold noses against the incomprehensible glass, while a bigger, flame-colored brother, with a black face and a jet stripe along his back, poises himself among the fern-like leafage and tranquilly disregards the impertinent nibblings of two or three scaly and comical little fellows, with brown backs, flat white bellies, beady black eyes, and half a dozen slender

ebony feelers, waving about their mouths like so many fierce mustachios.

In the second large globe a score of little olive-green eels, beautifully lithe, glide to and fro with sinuous smoothness, or, startled by a passing shadow, slip out of sight with proverbial celerity among the feathery foliage. In the third a community of small brown snails is securely housed, their fine indifference to alarming circumstances, and their philosophic deliberation of movement, affording an edifying contrast to the superfluous squirminess of their finny brethren. In one of the smaller globes are six or eight docile minnows, while the other is full of a wrestling crowd of youthful tortoises, an inch or two in length, who look demurely vicious as they claw their way persistently along the smooth glass, displaying the vivid scarlet and yellow stripes on the under sides of their shells, slowly wagging their acute little tails, and thrusting forth their long necks at intervals with an air of preternatural penetration.

On the same rude shelf with the globes stands a square cage of rusty wires and green woodwork, filled with a dozen Java sparrowsfacetious creatures of canary size, with downy gray backs, slender black tails, little pink claws, chubby rose-red bills, and heads dark as a raven's wing and with a triangular, snow-white patch at each side, precisely like the long ends of a Shakespeare collar waggishly turned up over a wig of unnatural blackness. They are sitting very tranquilly just now on their three perches or on the edges of their two round white cups of water and of golden seed. Two affectionate couples are billing sleepily, and three or four bachelors are taking naps on one leg with their eyes shut. Order reigns; but suddenly yonder roguish fellow, without a moment's warning, begins to flap his wings like a crazy windmill. Another follows suit, and another, and in five seconds the whole cage is in a terrible flut

ter.

Then a pause, and every bird is motionless. Presently the original windmill performer leans slyly down from his perch, wickedly pecks a harmless sparrow standing unsuspiciously on the floor below, and then hops sideways to and fro in frantic delight. Another scurry, and the next minute two of the designing little wretches are sound asleep, while the rest are meditatively quiet, and one is solemnly engaged in staring at the snails in the adjacent globe with an air of the deepest solicitude.

In a square, dingy red cage, placed atop of the sparrows' domicile, two "shell parro