In the midst of a snow-storm, they may often be seen sporting, as it were, in the very whirlpool of the driving snows, and alighting upon the tall sedges and weeds, and eagerly gathering the produce.

There were sounds of sibilant dripping in the dim sedges; of alewives jumping by the side of our boat; of a sudden rush of blackbird wings; and of the evening breeze as it freshened in the bending blades.

Like a dazzle of sparks from a glowing brand, 'Mid the tender green of the feathery fern And nodding sedge, by the light gale fanned, The Indian pinks in the sunlight burn; And the wide, cool cups of the corn flower brim With the sapphire's splendor of heaven's own blue, In sylvan hollows and dingles dim, Still sweet with a hint of the mornand you!

No day passes that I do not, in the course of my walk, put up a number of the land birds, and startle from among the gigantic sedges the long-necked water-fowl by dozens.

In the grassy sedge that bordered the canal the frogs were calling to each other with that conversational note of interrogation in their throats which makes their music one of Nature's most sociable and companionable sounds.

A few hardy sedges, frost-pinched every night, are occasionally found making soft sods along the sun-touched portions of their shores, and when their northern banks slope openly to the south, and are soil-covered, no matter how coarsely, they are sure to be brightened with flowers.

And all securely shall the herd of boars Feed on the marshy sedge; and thou, my bow, With slackened string, enjoy a long repose.

For miles on the outer side of the curving prongs of land stretched a rugged, desolate coast, indented with coves and creeks, lined with bowlders of granite half sunken in the sea, and edged by beaches overgrown with pale sedge, or covered with beds of seaweed.

All day my mule with patient tread Had moved along the plain, Now o'er the lava's ashen bed, Now through the sprouting grain, Across the torrent's rocky lair, Beneath the aloe-hedge, Where yellow broom makes sweet the air, And waves the purple sedge.

When the grey of the eastern sky turns pink, Through the silver sedge at the pond's low brink

the juniper boughs is hung; And further on, by the elder hedge, Where the turtles come out to sleep, The marsh-hen builds, by the brooklet's edge, Her warm, wet home in the swampy sedge, 'Mid the shadows so dark and deep.

The highest are set in bleak, rough bowls, scantily fringed with brown and yellow sedges.

While forming my plantation I had a brand thrown into a bed of tall yellow sedges which screen the brimming waters of the noble river from our parlour window, and which I therefore wished removed.