against one who shoots one of them. It is the most privileged individual of the town. The reason why? It is the street-cleaner. It picks the offal from gutter or sidewalk, and nothing escapes its hungry maw. Its business may not be cleanly, but its person is. It never looks soiled, but its black wings shine, and its beak is as white as "store teeth." It looks like a nice house-maid whose service does not make her soiled. It is a large bird, looking like the turkey, though of a different species, and of a broad, swift wing, that sustains it in long flights. It appears very solemn, the priest of the air, especially when it sits on the cross of the churches, one on each arm frequently, and one on the top. Once I saw two thus sitting on the top, one on the other, as quiet and churchly as though each were carved in stone. Hood says,
"The daw's not reckon'd a religious bird,
Because it keeps a-cawing from the steeple."
But the buzzard comes nearer that desert, and by its solemn air, clerical garb, and sanitary service, may claim a place in, as well as on, the sanctuary. Perhaps some foes of the cloth might say its greediness and determination to have the last mite, if alive, was also a proof of this relationship. At any rate, unlike the daw, it is the protected if not the petted bird of the city, and helps keep off the pestilence, which has a blacker hue and more horrible nature than the worst of its enemies ever attributed to it. Honor to this faithful black servant of man, as to those featherless bipeds of like hue, that are more worthy of our praise for their more excellent service.
The houses hug the narrow sidewalks, each with a large portal opening into a roofless court, and with windows scantily piercing their second story. They very rarely go higher. Not a building inclosing the chief plaza is above this height. Hotel, warehouse, and governor's residence close with the second story. The third occasionally appears; but fourth and fifth, up to seventh and eighth, with Mansard roofs—two stories more—these Paris and New York luxuries are here unknown. Why? Because the earth gets
