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diff --git a/10760-h/10760-h.htm b/10760-h/10760-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a9343e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/10760-h/10760-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4752 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st November 2003), see www.w3.org"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<meta content="pg2html (binary version 0.12a)" name="generator"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Florida Sketch Book, by +Bradford Torrey.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + P { margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 12pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-top: 4em; } + HR { width: 33%; } + PRE { font-family: "Courier", monospace;} + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + blockquote {text-align: justify;} + .poem + {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .figure, .figcenter, .figright + {padding: 1em; margin: 0; text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em;} + .figure img, .figcenter img, .figright img + {border: none;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; font-size: 1em; margin-bottom: 0em;} + .index { font-family: "Verdana", "Helvetica", sans serif;} + .index p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; font-size: .8em; } + .index p.i2 { margin-left: 1em; } + .note, .footnote + {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10760 ***</div> + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3"> +<tr> +<td> +THERE IS AN IMPROVED EDITION OF THIS TITLE THAT CONTAINS A LINKED IDEX WHICH MAY VIEWED AT EBOOK <big><b><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59608"> +[ # 59608 ]</a></b></big> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<pre> +[Transcriber's Note: The original scan for text page 142 is missing. +This is noted where it occurs in the text.] +</pre> +<h1>A FLORIDA SKETCH BOOK</h1> +<p> </p> +<h3>By<br /> +BRADFORD TORREY</h3> +<h4>Books by Mr. Torrey.<br> +<br> +BIRDS IN THE BUSH.<br> +A RAMBLER'S LEASE.<br> +THE FOOT-PATH WAY.<br> +A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +1894<br></h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<p class="toc"><a href="#flat-woods">IN THE FLAT-WOODS.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#marsh">BESIDE THE MARSH.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#daytona">ON THE BEACH AT DAYTONA.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#hillsborough">ALONG THE +HILLSBOROUGH.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#mill">A MORNING AT THE OLD SUGAR +MILL.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#st.%20john's">ON THE UPPER ST. +JOHN'S.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#road">ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#plantation">ORNITHOLOGY ON A COTTON +PLANTATION.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#shrine">A FLORIDA SHRINE.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#tallahassee">WALKS ABOUT +TALLAHASSEE.</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#index">INDEX.</a></p> +<p> </p> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h1>A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK.</h1> +<a name="flat-woods"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<h2>IN THE FLAT-WOODS.</h2> +<p>In approaching Jacksonville by rail, the traveler rides hour +after hour through seemingly endless pine barrens, otherwise known +as low pine-woods and flat-woods, till he wearies of the sight. It +would be hard, he thinks, to imagine a region more unwholesome +looking and uninteresting, more poverty-stricken and God-forsaken, +in its entire aspect. Surely, men who would risk life in behalf of +such a country deserved to win their cause.</p> +<p>Monotonous as the flat-woods were, however, and malarious as +they looked,—arid wastes and stretches of stagnant water +flying past the car window in perpetual alternation, I was +impatient to get into them. They were a world the like of which I +had never seen; and wherever I went in eastern Florida, I made it +one of my earliest concerns to seek them out.</p> +<p>My first impression was one of disappointment, or perhaps I +should rather say, of bewilderment. In fact, I returned from my +first visit to the flat-woods under the delusion that I had not +been into them at all. This was at St. Augustine, whither I had +gone after a night only in Jacksonville. I looked about the quaint +little city, of course, and went to the South Beach, on St. +Anastasia Island; then I wished to see the pine lands. They were to +be found, I was told, on the other side of the San Sebastian. The +sun was hot (or so it seemed to a man fresh from the rigors of a +New England winter), and the sand was deep; but I sauntered through +New Augustine, and pushed on up the road toward Moultrie (I believe +it was), till the last houses were passed and I came to the edge of +the pine-woods. Here, presently, the roads began to fork in a very +confusing manner. The first man I met— a kindly +cracker—cautioned me against getting lost; but I had no +thought of taking the slightest risk of that kind. I was not going +to <i>explore</i> the woods, but only to enter them, sit down, look +about me, and listen. The difficulty was to get into them. As I +advanced, they receded. It was still only the beginning of a wood; +the trees far apart and comparatively small, the ground covered +thickly with saw palmetto, interspersed here and there with patches +of brown grass or sedge.</p> +<p>In many places the roads were under water, and as I seemed to be +making little progress, I pretty soon sat down in a pleasantly +shaded spot. Wagons came along at intervals, all going toward the +city, most of them with loads of wood; ridiculously small loads, +such as a Yankee boy would put upon a wheelbarrow. "A fine day," +said I to the driver of such a cart. "Yes, sir," he answered, "it's +a <i>pretty</i> day." He spoke with an emphasis which seemed to +imply that he accepted my remark as well meant, but hardly adequate +to the occasion. Perhaps, if the day had been a few shades +brighter, he would have called it "handsome," or even "good +looking." Expressions of this kind, however, are matters of local +or individual taste, and as such are not to be disputed about. +Thus, a man stopped me in Tallahassee to inquire what time it was. +I told him, and he said, "Ah, a little sooner than I thought." And +why not "sooner" as well as "earlier"? But when, on the same road, +two white girls in an ox-cart hailed me with the question, "What +time 't is?" I thought the interrogative idiom a little queer; +almost as queer, shall we say, as "How do you do?" may have sounded +to the first man who heard it,—if the reader is able to +imagine such a person.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, let the morning be "fine" or "pretty," it was all one +to the birds. The woods were vocal with the cackling of robins, the +warble of bluebirds, and the trills of pine warblers. Flickers were +shouting—or laughing, if one pleased to hear it so—with +true flickerish prolixity, and a single downy woodpecker called +sharply again and again. A mocking-bird near me (there is +<i>always</i> a mocking-bird near you, in Florida) added his voice +for a time, but soon relapsed into silence. The fact was +characteristic; for, wherever I went, I found it true that the +mocker grew less musical as the place grew wilder. By instinct he +is a public performer, he demands an audience; and it is only in +cities, like St. Augustine and Tallahassee, that he is heard at his +freest and best. A loggerhead shrike—now close at my elbow, +now farther away—was practicing his extensive vocabulary with +perseverance, if not with enthusiasm. Like his relative the "great +northern," though perhaps in a less degree, the loggerhead is +commonly at an extreme, either loquacious or dumb; as if he could +not let his moderation be known unto any man. Sometimes I fancied +him possessed with an insane ambition to match the mocking-bird in +song as well as in personal appearance. If so, it is not surprising +that he should be subject to fits of discouragement and silence. +Aiming at the sun, though a good and virtuous exercise, as we have +all heard, is apt to prove dispiriting to sensible marksmen. Crows +(fish crows, in all probability, but at the time I did not know it) +uttered strange, hoarse, flat-sounding caws. Everv bird of them +must have been born without a palate, it seemed to me. White-eyed +chewinks were at home in the dense palmetto scrub, whence they +announced themselves unmistakably by sharp whistles. Now and then +one of them mounted a leaf, and allowed me to see his pale yellow +iris. Except for this mark, recognizable almost as far as the bird +could be distinguished at all, he looked exactly like our common +New England towhee. Somewhere behind me was a kingfisher's rattle, +and from a savanna in the same direction came the songs of meadow +larks; familiar, but with something unfamiliar about them at the +same time, unless my ears deceived me.</p> +<p>More interesting than any of the birds yet named, because more +strictly characteristic of the place, as well as more strictly new +to me, were the brown-headed nuthatches. I was on the watch for +them: they were one of the three novelties which I knew were to be +found in the pine lands, and nowhere else, —the other two +being the red-cockaded woodpecker and the pine-wood sparrow; and +being thus on the lookout, I did not expect to be taken by +surprise, if such a paradox (it is nothing worse) maybe allowed to +pass. But when I heard them twittering in the distance, as I did +almost immediately, I had no suspicion of what they were. The voice +had nothing of that nasal quality, that Yankee twang, as some +people would call it, which I had always associated with the +nuthatch family. On the contrary, it was decidedly +finchlike,—so much so that some of the notes, taken by +themselves, would have been ascribed without hesitation to the +goldfinch or the pine finch, had I heard them in New England; and +even as things were, I was more than once deceived for the moment. +As for the birds themselves, they were evidently a cheerful and +thrifty race, much more numerous than the red-cockaded woodpeckers, +and much less easily overlooked than the pine-wood sparrows. I +seldom entered the flat-woods anywhere without finding them. They +seek their food largely about the leafy ends of the pine branches, +resembling the Canadian nuthatches in this respect, so that it is +only on rare occasions that one sees them creeping about the trunks +or larger limbs. Unlike their two Northern relatives, they are +eminently social, often traveling in small flocks, even in the +breeding season, and keeping up an almost incessant chorus of +shrill twitters as they flit hither and thither through the woods. +The first one to come near me was full of inquisitiveness; he flew +back and forth past my head, exactly as chickadees do in a similar +mood, and once seemed almost ready to alight on my hat. "Let us +have a look at this stranger," he appeared to be saying. Possibly +his nest was not far off, but I made no search for it. Afterwards I +found two nests, one in a low stump, and one in the trunk of a +pine, fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. Both of them +contained young ones (March 31 and April 2), as I knew by the +continual goings-in-and-out of the fathers and mothers. In dress +the brown-head is dingy, with little or nothing of the neat and +attractive appearance of our New England nuthatches.</p> +<p>In this pine-wood on the road to Moultrie I found no sign of the +new woodpecker or the new sparrow. Nor was I greatly disappointed. +The place itself was a sufficient novelty,—the place and the +summer weather. The pines murmured overhead, and the palmettos +rustled all about. Now a butterfly fluttered past me, and now a +dragonfly. More than one little flock of tree swallows went over +the wood, and once a pair of phoebes amused me by an uncommonly +pretty lover's quarrel. Truly it was a pleasant hour. In the midst +of it there came along a man in a cart, with a load of wood. We +exchanged the time of day, and I remarked upon the smallness of his +load. Yes, he said; but it was a pretty heavy load to drag seven or +eight miles over such roads. Possibly he understood me as implying +that he seemed to be in rather small business, although I had no +such purpose, for he went on to say: "In 1861, when this beautiful +war broke out between our countries, my father owned niggers. We +didn't have to do <i>this</i>. But I don't complain. If I hadn't +got a bullet in me, I should do pretty well."</p> +<p>"Then you were in the war?" I said.</p> +<p>"Oh, yes, yes, sir! I was in the Confederate service. Yes, sir, +I'm a Southerner to the backbone. My grandfather was a +——" (I missed the patronymic), "and commanded St. +Augustine."</p> +<p>The name had a foreign sound, and the man's complexion was +swarthy, and in all simplicity I asked if he was a Minorcan. I +might as well have touched a lighted match to powder. His eyes +flashed, and he came round the tail of the cart, gesticulating with +his stick.</p> +<p>"Minorcan!" he broke out. "Spain and the island of Minorca are +two places, ain't they?" I admitted meekly that they were.</p> +<p>"You are English, ain't you?" he went on. "You are +English,—Yankee born,—ain't you?"</p> +<p>I owned it.</p> +<p>"Well, I'm Spanish. That ain't Minorcan. My grandfather was a +——, and commanded St. Augustine. He couldn't have done +that if he had been Minorcan."</p> +<p>By this time he was quieting down a bit. His father remembered +the Indian war. The son had heard him tell about it.</p> +<p>"Those were dangerous times," he remarked. "You couldn't have +been standing out here in the woods then."</p> +<p>"There is no danger here now, is there?" said I.</p> +<p>"No, no, not now." But as he drove along he turned to say that +<i>he</i> wasn't afraid of <i>any</i> thing; he wasn't that kind of +a man. Then, with a final turn, he added, what I could not dispute, +"A man's life is always in danger."</p> +<p>After he was gone, I regretted that I had offered no apology for +my unintentionally offensive question; but I was so taken by +surprise, and so much interested in the man as a specimen, that I +quite forgot my manners till it was too late. One thing I learned: +that it is not prudent, in these days, to judge a Southern man's +blood, in either sense of the word, by his dress or occupation. +This man had brought seven or eight miles a load of wood that might +possibly be worth seventy-five cents (I questioned the owner of +what looked like just such a load afterward, and found his asking +price half a dollar), and for clothing had on a pair of trousers +and a blue cotton shirt, the latter full of holes, through which +the skin was visible; yet his father was a —— and had +"owned niggers."</p> +<p>A still more picturesque figure in this procession of +wood-carters was a boy of perhaps ten or eleven. He rode his horse, +and was barefooted and barelegged; but he had a cigarette in his +mouth, and to each brown heel was fastened an enormous spur. Who +was it that infected the world with the foolish and disastrous +notion that work and play are two different things? And was it +Emerson, or some other wise man, who said that a boy was the true +philosopher?</p> +<p>When it came time to think of returning to St. Augustine, for +dinner, I appreciated my cracker's friendly warning against losing +my way; for though I had hardly so much as entered the woods, and +had taken, as I thought, good heed to my steps, I was almost at +once in a quandary as to my road. There was no occasion for +worry,—with the sun out, and my general course perfectly +plain; but here was a fork in the road, and whether to bear to the +left or to the right was a simple matter of guess-work. I made the +best guess I could, and guessed wrong, as was apparent after a +while, when I found the road under deep water for several rods. I +objected to wading, and there was no ready way of going round, +since the oak and palmetto scrub crowded close up to the roadside, +and just here was all but impenetrable. What was still more +conclusive, the road was the wrong one, as the inundation proved, +and, for aught I could tell, might carry me far out of my course. I +turned back, therefore, under the midday sun, and by good luck a +second attempt brought me out of the woods very near where I had +entered them.</p> +<p>I visited this particular piece of country but once afterward, +having in the mean time discovered a better place of the same sort +along the railroad, in the direction of Palatka. There, on a Sunday +morning, I heard my first pine-wood sparrow. Time and tune could +hardly have been in truer accord. The hour was of the quietest, the +strain was of the simplest, and the bird sang as if he were +dreaming. For a long time I let him go on without attempting to +make certain who he was. He seemed to be rather far off: if I +waited his pleasure, he would perhaps move toward me; if I +disturbed him, he would probably become silent. So I sat on the end +of a sleeper and listened. It was not great music. It made me think +of the swamp sparrow; and the swamp sparrow is far from being a +great singer. A single prolonged, drawling note (in that respect +unlike the swamp sparrow, of course), followed by a succession of +softer and sweeter ones,— that was all, when I came to +analyze it; but that is no fair description of what I heard. The +quality of the song is not there; and it was the quality, the +feeling, the soul of it, if I may say what I mean, that made it, in +the true sense of a much-abused word, charming.</p> +<p>There could be little doubt that the bird was a pine-wood +sparrow; but such things are not to be taken for granted. Once or +twice, indeed, the thought of some unfamiliar warbler had crossed +my mind. At last, therefore, as the singer still kept out of sight, +I leaped the ditch and pushed into the scrub. Happily I had not far +to go; he had been much nearer than I thought. A small bird flew up +before me, and dropped almost immediately into a clump of palmetto. +I edged toward the spot and waited. Then the song began again, this +time directly in front of me, but still far-away-sounding and +dreamy. I find that last word in my hasty note penciled at the +time, and can think of no other that expresses the effect half so +well. I looked and looked, and all at once there sat the bird on a +palmetto leaf. Once again he sang, putting up his head. Then he +dropped out of sight, and I heard nothing more. I had seen only his +head and neck,—enough to show him a sparrow, and almost of +necessity the pine-wood sparrow. No other strange member of the +finch family was to be looked for in such a place.</p> +<p>On further acquaintance, let me say at once, <i>Pucaea +aestivalis</i> proved to be a more versatile singer than the +performances of my first bird would have led me to suppose. He +varies his tune freely, but always within a pretty narrow compass; +as is true, also, of the field sparrow, with whom, as I soon came +to feel, he has not a little in common. It is in musical form only +that he suggests the swamp sparrow. In tone and spirit, in the +qualities of sweetness and expressiveness, he is nearly akin to +<i>Spizella pusilla</i>. One does for the Southern pine barren what +the other does for the Northern berry pasture. And this is high +praise; for though in New England we have many singers more +brilliant than the field sparrow, we have none that are sweeter, +and few that in the long run give more pleasure to sensitive +hearers.</p> +<p>I found the pine-wood sparrow afterward in New Smyrna, Port +Orange, Sanford, and Tallahassee. So far as I could tell, it was +always the same bird; but I shot no specimens, and speak with no +authority.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href= +"#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> Living always in the pine lands, and +haunting the dense undergrowth, it is heard a hundred times where +it is seen once,—a point greatly in favor of its +effectiveness as a musician. Mr. Brewster speaks of it as singing +always from an elevated perch, while the birds that I saw in the +act of song, a very limited number, were invariably perched low. +One that I watched in New Smyrna (one of a small chorus, the others +being invisible) sang for a quarter of an hour from a stake or +stump which rose perhaps a foot above the dwarf palmetto. It was +the same song that I had heard in St. Augustine; only the birds +here were in a livelier mood, and sang <i>out</i> instead of +<i>sotto voce</i>. The long introductory note sounded sometimes as +if it were indrawn, and often, if not always, had a considerable +burr in it. Once in a while the strain was caught up at the end and +sung over again, after the manner of the field sparrow,—one +of that bird's prettiest tricks. At other times the song was +delivered with full voice, and then repeated almost under the +singer's breath. This was done beautifully in the Port Orange +flat-woods, the bird being almost at my feet. I had seen him a +moment before, and saw him again half a minute later, but at that +instant he was out of sight in the scrub, and seemingly on the +ground. This feature of the song, one of its chief merits and its +most striking peculiarity, is well described by Mr. Brewster. +"Now," he says, "it has a full, bell-like ring that seems to fill +the air around; next it is soft and low and inexpressibly tender; +now it is clear again, but so modulated that the sound seems to +come from a great distance."<a id="footnotetag2" name= +"footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></p> +<p>Not many other birds, I think (I cannot recall any), habitually +vary their song in this manner. Other birds sing almost inaudibly +at times, especially in the autumnal season. Even the brown +thrasher, whose ordinary performance, is so full-voiced, not to say +boisterous, will sometimes soliloquize, or seem to soliloquize, in +the faintest of undertones. The formless autumnal warble of the +song sparrow is familiar to every one. And in this connection I +remember, and am not likely ever to forget, a winter wren who +favored me with what I thought the most bewitching bit of vocalism +to which I had ever listened. He was in the bushes close at my +side, in the Franconia Notch, and delivered his whole song, with +all its customary length, intricacy, and speed, in a tone—a +whisper, I may almost say—that ran along the very edge of +silence. The unexpected proximity of a stranger may have had +something to do with his conduct, as it often appears to have with +the thrasher's; but, however that may be, the cases are not +parallel with that of the pine-wood sparrow, inasmuch as the latter +bird not merely sings under his breath on special occasions, +whether on account of the nearness of a listener or for any other +reason, but in his ordinary singing uses louder and softer tones +interchangeably, almost exactly as human singers and players do; as +if, in the practice of his art, he had learned to appreciate, +consciously or unconsciously (and practice naturally goes before +theory), the expressive value of what I believe is called musical +dynamics.</p> +<p>I spent many half-days in the pine lands (how gladly now would I +spend another!), but never got far into them. ("Into their depths," +my pen was on the point of making me say; but that would have been +a false note. The flat-woods have no "depths.") Whether I followed +the railway,—in many respects a pretty satisfactory +method,—or some roundabout, aimless carriage road, a mile or +two was generally enough. The country offers no temptation to +pedestrian feats, nor does the imagination find its account in +going farther and farther. For the reader is not to think of the +flat-woods as in the least resembling a Northern forest, which at +every turn opens before the visitor and beckons him forward. Beyond +and behind, and on either side, the pine-woods are ever the same. +It is this monotony, by the bye, this utter absence of landmarks, +that makes it so unsafe for the stranger to wander far from the +beaten track. The sand is deep, the sun is hot; one place is as +good as another. What use, then, to tire yourself? And so, unless +the traveler is going somewhere, as I seldom was, he is continually +stopping by the way. Now a shady spot entices him to put down his +umbrella,—for there <i>is</i> a shady spot, here and there, +even in a Florida pine-wood; or blossoms are to be plucked; or a +butterfly, some gorgeous and nameless creature, brightens the wood +as it passes; or a bird is singing; or an eagle is soaring far +overhead, and must be watched out of sight; or a buzzard, with +upturned wings, floats suspiciously near the wanderer, as if with +sinister intent (buzzard shadows are a regular feature of the +flat-wood landscape, just as cloud shadows are in a mountainous +country); or a snake lies stretched out in the sun,—a "whip +snake," perhaps, that frightens the unwary stroller by the amazing +swiftness with which it runs away from him; or some strange +invisible insect is making uncanny noises in the underbrush. One of +my recollections of the railway woods at St. Augustine is of a +cricket, or locust, or something else,—I never saw +it,—that amused me often with a formless rattling or drumming +sound. I could think of nothing but a boy's first lesson upon the +bones, the rhythm of the beats was so comically mistimed and +bungled.</p> +<p>One fine morning,—it was the 18th of February,—I had +gone down the railroad a little farther than usual, attracted by +the encouraging appearance of a swampy patch of rather large +deciduous trees. Some of them, I remember, were red maples, already +full of handsome, high-colored fruit. As I drew near, I heard +indistinctly from among them what might have been the song of a +black-throated green warbler, a bird that would have made a valued +addition to my Florida list, especially at that early date. <a id= +"footnotetag3" name="footnotetag3"></a><a href= +"#footnote3"><sup>3</sup></a> No sooner was the song repeated, +however, than I saw that I had been deceived; it was something I +had never heard before. But it certainly had much of the +black-throated green's quality, and without question was the note +of a warbler of some kind. What a shame if the bird should give me +the slip! Meanwhile, it kept on singing at brief intervals, and was +not so far away but that, with my glass, I should be well able to +make it out, if only I could once get my eyes on it. That was the +difficulty. Something stirred among the branches. Yes, a +yellow-throated warbler (<i>Dendroica dominica</i>), a bird of +which I had seen my first specimens, all of them silent, during the +last eight days. Probably he was the singer. I hoped so, at any +rate. That would be an ideal case of a</p> +<p>beautiful bird with a song to match. I kept him under my glass, +and presently the strain was repeated, but not by him. Then it +ceased, and I was none the wiser. Perhaps I never should be. It was +indeed a shame. Such a <i>taking</i> song; so simple, and yet so +pretty, and so thoroughly distinctive. I wrote it down thus: +<i>tee-koi, tee-koo</i>,—two couplets, the first syllable of +each a little emphasized and dwelt upon, not drawled, and a little +higher in pitch than its fellow. Perhaps it might be expressed +thus:—</p> +<div class="figcenter"><a href="images/031.png"><img src= +"images/031.png" alt="Musical Notes"></a></div> +<p>I cannot profess to be sure of that, however, nor have I +unqualified confidence in the adequacy of musical notation, no +matter how skillfully employed, to convey a truthful idea of any +bird song.</p> +<p>The affair remained a mystery till, in Daytona, nine days +afterward, the same notes were heard again, this time in lower +trees that did not stand in deep water. Then it transpired that my +mysterious warbler was not a warbler at all, but the Carolina +chickadee. That was an outcome quite unexpected, although I now +remembered that chickadees were in or near the St. Augustine swamp; +and what was more to the purpose, I could now discern some +relationship between the <i>tee-koi, tee-koo</i> (or, as I now +wrote it, <i>see-toi, see-too</i>), and the familiar so-called +phoebe whistle of the black-capped titmouse. The Southern bird, I +am bound to acknowledge, is much the more accomplished singer of +the two. Sometimes he repeats the second dissyllable, making six +notes in all. At other times he breaks out with a characteristic +volley of fine chickadee notes, and runs without a break into the +<i>see-toi, see-too</i>, with a highly pleasing effect. Then if, on +the top of this, he doubles the <i>see-too</i>, we have a really +prolonged and elaborate musical effort, quite putting into the +shade our New England bird's <i>hear, hear me</i>, sweet and +welcome as that always is.</p> +<p>The Southern chickadee, it should be said, is not to be +distinguished from its Northern relative—in the bush, I +mean—except by its notes. It is slightly smaller, like +Southern birds in general, but is practically identical in plumage. +Apart from its song, what most impressed me was its scarcity. It +was found, sooner or later, wherever I went, I believe, but always +in surprisingly small numbers, and I saw only one nest. That was +built in a roadside china-tree in Tallahassee, and contained young +ones (April 17), as was clear from the conduct of its owners.</p> +<p>It must not be supposed that I left St. Augustine without +another search for my unknown "warbler." The very next morning +found me again at the swamp, where for at least an hour I sat and +listened. I heard no <i>tee-koi, tee-koo</i>, but was rewarded +twice over for my walk. In the first place, before reaching the +swamp, I found the third of my flat-wood novelties, the +red-cockaded woodpecker. As had happened with the nuthatch and the +sparrow, I heard him before seeing him: first some notes, which by +themselves would hardly have suggested a woodpecker origin, and +then a noise of hammering. Taken together, the two sounds, left +little doubt as to their author; and presently I saw him,—or +rather them, for there were two birds. I learned nothing about +them, either then or afterwards (I saw perhaps eight individuals +during my ten weeks' visit), but it was worth something barely to +see and hear them. Henceforth <i>Dryobates borealis</i> is a bird, +and not merely a name. This, as I have said, was among the pines, +before reaching the swamp. In the swamp itself, there suddenly +appeared from somewhere, as if by magic (a dramatic entrance is not +without its value, even out-of-doors), a less novel but far more +impressive figure, a pileated woodpecker; a truly splendid fellow, +with the scarlet cheek-patches. When I caught sight of him, he +stood on one of the upper branches of a tall pine, looking +wonderfully alert and wide-awake; now stretching out his scrawny +neck, and now drawing it in again, his long crest all the while +erect and flaming. After a little he dropped into the underbrush, +out of which came at intervals a succession of raps. I would have +given something to have had him under my glass just then, for I had +long felt curious to see him in the act of chiseling out those big, +oblong, clean-cut, sharp-angled "peck-holes" which, close to the +base of the tree, make so common and notable a feature of Vermont +and New Hampshire forests; but, though I did my best, I could not +find him, till all at once he came up again and took to a tall +pine,—the tallest in the wood,—where he pranced about +for a while, striking sundry picturesque but seemingly aimless +attitudes, and then made off for good. All in all, he was a +wild-looking bird, if ever I saw one.</p> +<p>I was no sooner in St. Augustine, of course, than my eyes were +open for wild flowers. Perhaps I felt a little disappointed. +Certainly the land was not ablaze with color. In the grass about +the old fort fhere was plenty of the yellow oxalis and the creeping +white houstonia; and from a crevice in the wall, out of reach, +leaned a stalk of goldenrod in full bloom. The reader may smile, if +he will, but this last flower was a surprise and a stumbling-block. +A vernal goldenrod! Dr. Chapman's Flora made no mention of such an +anomaly. Sow thistles, too, looked strangely anachronistic. I had +never thought of them as harbingers of springtime. The truth did +not break upon me till a week or so afterward. Then, on the way to +the beach at Daytona, where the pleasant peninsula road traverses a +thick forest of short-leaved pines, every tree of which leans +heavily inland at the same angle ("the leaning pines of Daytona," I +always said to myself, as I passed), I came upon some white +beggar's-ticks, —like daisies; and as I stopped to see what +they were, I noticed the presence of ripe seeds. The plant had been +in flower a long time. And then I laughed at my own dullness. It +fairly deserved a medal. As if, even in Massachusetts, autumnal +flowers —the groundsel, at least—did not sometimes +persist in blossoming far into the winter! A day or two after this, +I saw a mullein stalk still presenting arms, as it were (the +mullein, always looks the soldier to me), with one bright flower. +If I had found <i>that</i> in St. Augustine, I flatter myself I +should have been less easily fooled.</p> +<p>There were no such last-year relics in the flat-woods, so far as +I remember, but spring blossoms were beginning to make their +appearance there by the middle of February, particularly along the +railroad,—violets in abundance (<i>Viola cucullata</i>), +dwarf orange-colored dandelions (<i>Krigia</i>), the Judas-tree, or +redbud, St. Peter's-wort, blackberry, the yellow star-flower +(<i>Hypoxis juncea</i>), and butterworts. I recall, too, in a +swampy spot, a fine fresh tuft of the golden club, with its +gorgeous yellow spadix,—a plant that I had never seen in +bloom before, although I had once admired a Cape Cod "hollow" full +of the rank tropical leaves. St. Peter's-wort, a low shrub, thrives +everywhere in the pine barrens, and, without being especially +attractive, its rather sparse yellow flowers—not unlike the +St. John's-wort—do something to enliven the general waste. +The butterworts are beauties, and true children of the spring. I +picked my first ones, which by chance were of the smaller purple +species (<i>Pinguicula pumila</i>), on my way down from the woods, +on a moist bank. At that moment a white man came up the road. "What +do you call this flower?" said I. "Valentine's flower," he answered +at once. "Ah," said I, "because it is in bloom on St. Valentine's +Day, I suppose?" "No, sir," he said. "Do you speak Spanish?" I had +to shake my head. "Because I could explain it better in Spanish," +he continued, as if by way of apology; but he went on in perfectly +good English: "If you put one of them under your pillow, and think +of some one you would like very much to see,—some one who has +been dead a long time,—you will be likely to dream of him. It +is a very pretty flower," he added. And so it is; hardly prettier, +however, to my thinking, than the blossoms of the early creeping +blackberry (<i>Rubus trivialis</i>). With them I fairly fell in +love: true white roses, I called them, each with its central ring +of dark purplish stamens; as beautiful as the cloudberry, which +once, ten years before, I had found, on the summit of Mount +Clinton, in New Hampshire, and refused to believe a <i>Rubus</i>, +though Dr. Gray's key led me to that genus again and again. There +<i>is</i> something in a name, say what you will.</p> +<p>Some weeks later, and a little farther south,—in the +flat-woods behind New Smyrna,—I saw other flowers, but never +anything of that tropical exuberance at which the average Northern +tourist expects to find himself staring. Boggy places were full of +blue iris (the common <i>Iris versicolor</i> of New England, but of +ranker growth), and here and there a pool was yellow with +bladderwort. I was taken also with the larger and taller (yellow) +butterwort, which I used never to see as I went through the woods +in the morning, but was sure to find standing in the tall dry grass +along the border of the sandy road, here one and there one, on my +return at noon. In similar places grew a "yellow daisy" +(<i>Leptopoda</i>), a single big head, of a deep color, at the top +of a leafless stem. It seemed to be one of the most abundant of +Florida spring flowers, but I could not learn that it went by any +distinctive vernacular name. Beside the railway track were +blue-eyed grass and pipewort, and a dainty blue lobelia (<i>L. +Feayana</i>), with once in a while an extremely pretty coreopsis, +having a purple centre, and scarcely to be distinguished from one +that is common in gardens. No doubt the advancing season brings an +increasing wealth of such beauty to the flat-woods. No doubt, too, +I missed the larger half of what might have been found even at the +time of my visit; for I made no pretense of doing any real +botanical work, having neither the time nor the equipment. The +birds kept me busy, for the most part, when the country itself did +not absorb my attention.</p> +<p>More interesting, and a thousand times more memorable, than any +flower or bird was the pine barren itself. I have given no true +idea of it, I am perfectly aware: open, parklike, flooded with +sunshine, level as a floor. "What heartache," Lanier breaks out, +poor exile, dying of consumption,—"what heartache! Ne'er a +hill!" A dreary country to ride through, hour after hour; an +impossible country to live in, but most pleasant for a half-day +winter stroll. Notwithstanding I never went far into it, as I have +already said, I had always a profound sensation of remoteness; as +if I might go on forever, and be no farther away.</p> +<p>Yet even here I had more than one reminder that the world is a +small place. I met a burly negro in a cart, and fell into talk with +him about the Florida climate, an endless topic, out of which a +cynical traveler may easily extract almost endless amusement. How +abput the summers here? I inquired. Were they really as +paradisaical (I did not use that word) as some reports would lead +one to suppose? The man smiled, as if he had heard something like +that before. He did not think the Florida summer a dream of +delight, even on the east coast. "I'm tellin' you the truth, sah; +the mosquiters an' sandflies is awful." Was he born here? I asked. +No; he came from B——, Alabama. Everybody in eastern +Florida came from somewhere, as well as I could make out.</p> +<p>"Oh, from B——," said I. "Did you know Mr. +W——, of the —— Iron Works?"</p> +<p>He smiled again. "Yes, sah; I used to work for him. He's a nice +man." He spoke the truth that time beyond a peradventure. He was +healthier here than in the other place, he thought, and wages were +higher; but he liked the other place better "for pleasure." It was +an odd coincidence, was it not, that I should meet in this solitude +a man who knew the only citizen of Alabama with whom I was ever +acquainted.</p> +<p>At another time I fell in with an oldish colored man, who, like +myself, had taken to the woods for a quiet Sunday stroll. <i>He</i> +was from Mississippi, he told me. Oh, yes, he remembered the war; +he was a slave, twenty-one years old, when it broke out. To his +mind, the present generation of "niggers" were a pretty poor lot, +for all their "edication." He had seen them crowding folks off the +sidewalk, and puffing smoke in their faces. All of which was +nothing new; I had found that story more or less common among +negroes of his age. He didn't believe much in "edication;" but when +I asked if he thought the blacks were better off in slavery times, +he answered quickly, "I'd rather be a free man, <i>I</i> had." He +wasn't married; he had plenty to do to take care of himself. We +separated, he going one way and I the other; but he turned to ask, +with much seriousness (the reader must remember that this was only +three months after a national election), "Do you think they'll get +free trade?" "Truly," said I to myself, "'the world is too much +with us.' Even in the flat-woods there is no escaping the tariff +question." But I answered, in what was meant to be a reassuring +tone, "Not yet awhile. Some time." "I hope not," he said,—as +if liberty to buy and sell would be a dreadful blow to a man living +in a shanty in a Florida pine barren! He was taking the matter +rather too much to heart, perhaps; but surely it was encouraging to +see such a man interested in broad economical questions, and I +realized as never before the truth of what the newspapers so +continually tell us, that political campaigns are educational.</p> +<a name="marsh"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>BESIDE THE MARSH.</h2> +<p>I am sitting upon the upland bank of a narrow winding creek. +Before me is a sea of grass, brown and green of many shades. To the +north the marsh is bounded by live-oak woods,—a line with +numberless indentations, —beyond which runs the Matanzas +River, as I know by the passing and repassing of sails behind the +trees. Eastward are sand-hills, dazzling white in the sun, with a +ragged green fringe along their tops. Then comes a stretch of the +open sea, and then, more to the south, St. Anastasia Island, with +its tall black-and-white lighthouse and the cluster of lower +buildings at its base. Small sailboats, and now and then a tiny +steamer, pass up and down the river to and from St. Augustine.</p> +<p>A delicious south wind is blowing (it is the 15th of February), +and I sit in the shade of a cedar-tree and enjoy the air and the +scene. A contrast, this, to the frozen world I was living in, less +than a week ago.</p> +<p>As I approached the creek, a single spotted sandpiper was +teetering along the edge of the water, and the next moment a big +blue heron rose just beyond him and went flapping away to the +middle of the marsh. Now, an hour afterward, he is still standing +there, towering above the tall grass. Once when I turned that way I +saw, as I thought, a stake, and then something moved upon +it,—a bird of some kind. And what an enormous beak! I raised +my field-glass. It was the heron. His body was the post, and his +head was the bird. Meanwhile, the sandpiper has stolen away, I know +not when or where. He must have omitted the <i>tweet, tweet</i>, +with which ordinarily he signalizes his flight. He is the first of +his kind that I have seen during my brief stay in these parts.</p> +<p>Now a multitude of crows pass over; fish crows, I think they +must be, from their small size and their strange, ridiculous +voices. And now a second great blue heron comes in sight, and keeps +on over the marsh and over the live-oak wood, on his way to the San +Sebastian marshes, or some point still more remote. A fine show he +makes, with his wide expanse of wing, and his feet drawn up and +standing out behind him. Next a marsh hawk in brown plumage comes +skimming over the grass. This way and that he swerves in ever +graceful lines. For one to whom ease and grace come by nature, even +the chase of meadow mice is an act of beauty, while another goes +awkwardly though in pursuit of a goddess.</p> +<p>Several times I have noticed a kingfisher hovering above the +grass (so it looks, but no doubt he is over an arm of the creek), +striking the air with quick strokes, and keeping his head pointed +downward, after the manner of a tern. Then he disappeared while I +was looking at something else. Now I remark him sitting motionless +upon the top of a post in the midst of the marsh.</p> +<p>A third blue heron appears, and he too flies over without +stopping. Number One still keeps his place; through the glass I can +see him dressing his feathers with his clumsy beak. The lively +strain of a white-eyed vireo, pertest of songsters, comes to me +from somewhere on my right, and the soft chipping of myrtle +warblers is all but incessant. I look up from my paper to see a +turkey buzzard sailing majestically northward. I watch him till he +fades in the distance. Not once does he flap his wings, but sails +and sails, going with the wind, yet turning again and again to rise +against it,—helping himself thus to its adverse, uplifting +pressure in the place of wing-strokes, perhaps,—and passing +onward all the while in beautiful circles. He, too, scavenger +though he is, has a genius for being graceful. One might almost be +willing to be a buzzard, to fly like that!</p> +<p>The kingfisher and the heron are still at their posts. An +exquisite yellow butterfly, of a sort strange to my Yankee eyes, +flits past, followed by a red admiral. The marsh hawk is on the +wing again, and while looking at him I descry a second hawk, too +far away to be made out. Now the air behind me is dark with +crows,—a hundred or two, at least, circling over the low +cedars. Some motive they have for all their clamor, but it passes +my owlish wisdom to guess what it can be. A fourth blue heron +appears, and drops into the grass out of sight.</p> +<p>Between my feet is a single blossom of the yellow oxalis, the +only flower to be seen; and very pretty it is, each petal with an +orange spot at the base.</p> +<p>Another buzzard, another marsh hawk, another yellow butterfly, +and then a smaller one, darker, almost orange. It passes too +quickly over the creek and away. The marsh hawk comes nearer, and I +see the strong yellow tinge of his plumage, especially underneath. +He will grow handsomer as he grows older. A pity the same could not +be true of men. Behind me are sharp cries of titlarks. From the +direction of the river come frequent reports of guns. Somebody is +doing his best to be happy! All at once I prick up my ears. From +the grass just across the creek rises the brief, hurried song of a +long-billed marsh wren. So <i>he</i> is in Florida, is he? Already +I have heard confused noises which I feel sure are the work of +rails of some kind. No doubt there is abundant life concealed in +those acres on acres of close grass.</p> +<p>The heron and the kingfisher are still quiet. Their morning hunt +was successful, and for to-day Fate cannot harm them. A buzzard, +with nervous, rustling beats, goes directly above the low cedar +under which I am resting.</p> +<p>At last, after a siesta of two hours, the heron has changed his +place. I looked up just in season to see him sweeping over the +grass, into which he dropped the next instant. The tide is falling. +The distant sand-hills are winking in the heat, but the breeze is +deliciously cool, the very perfection of temperature, if a man is +to sit still in the shade. It is eleven o'clock. I have a mile to +go in the hot sun, and turn away. But first I sweep the line once +more with my glass. Yonder to the south are two more blue herons +standing in the grass. Perhaps there are more still. I sweep the +line. Yes, far, far away I can see four heads in a row. Heads and +necks rise above the grass. But so far away! Are they birds, or +only posts made alive by my imagination? I look again. I believe I +was deceived. They are nothing but stakes. See how in a row they +stand. I smile at myself. Just then one of them moves, and another +is pulled down suddenly into the grass. I smile again. "Ten great +blue herons," I say to myself.</p> +<p>All this has detained me, and meantime the kingfisher has taken +wing and gone noisily up the creek. The marsh hawk appears once +more. A killdeer's sharp, rasping note—a familiar sound in +St. Augustine—comes from I know not where. A procession of +more than twenty black vultures passes over my head. I can see +their feet drawn up under them. My own I must use in plodding +homeward.</p> +<a name="daytona"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>ON THE BEACH AT DAYTONA.</h2> +<p>The first eight days of my stay in Daytona were so delightful +that I felt as if I had never before seen fine weather, even in my +dreams. My east window looked across the Halifax River to the +peninsula woods. Beyond them was the ocean. Immediately after +breakfast, therefore, I made toward the north bridge, and in half +an hour or less was on the beach. Beaches are much the same the +world over, and there is no need to describe this one—Silver +Beach, I think I heard it called—except to say that it is +broad, hard, and, for a pleasure-seeker's purpose, endless. It is +backed by low sand-hills covered with impenetrable scrub,—oak +and palmetto,—beyond which is a dense growth of short-leaved +pines. Perfect weather, a perfect beach, and no throng of people: +here were the conditions of happiness; and here for eight days I +found it. The ocean itself was a solitude. Day after day not a sail +was in sight. Looking up and down the beach, I could usually see +somewhere in the distance a carriage or two, and as many foot +passengers; but I often walked a mile, or sat for half an hour, +without being within hail of any one. Never were airs more gentle +or colors more exquisite.</p> +<p>As for birds, they were surprisingly scarce, but never wanting +altogether. If everything else failed, a few fish-hawks were sure +to be in sight. I watched them at first with eager interest. Up and +down the beach they went, each by himself, with heads pointed +downward, scanning the shallow water. Often they stopped in their +course, and by means of laborious flappings held themselves poised +over a certain spot. Then, perhaps, they set their wings and shot +downward clean under water. If the plunge was unsuccessful, they +shook their feathers dry and were ready to begin again. They had +the fisherman's gift. The second, and even the third attempt might +fail, but no matter; it was simply a question of time and patience. +If the fish was caught, their first concern seemed to be to shift +their hold upon it, till its head pointed to the front. That done, +they shook themselves vigorously and started landward, the shining +white victim wriggling vainly in the clutch of the talons. I took +it for granted that they retired with their quarry to some secluded +spot on the peninsula, till one day I happened to be standing upon +a sand-hill as one passed overhead. Then I perceived that he kept +on straight across the peninsula and the river. More than once, +however, I saw one of them in no haste to go inland. On my second +visit, a hawk came circling about my head, carrying a fish. I was +surprised at the action, but gave it no second thought, nor once +imagined that he was making me his protector, till suddenly a large +bird dropped rather awkwardly upon the sand, not far before me. He +stood for an instant on his long, ungainly legs, and then, showing +a white head and a white tail, rose with a fish in his talons, and +swept away landward out of sight. Here was the osprey's parasite, +the bald eagle, for which I had been on the watch. Meantime, the +hawk too had disappeared. Whether it was his fish which the eagle +had picked up (having missed it in the air) I cannot say. I did not +see it fall, and knew nothing of the eagle's presence until he +fluttered to the beach.</p> +<p>Some days later, I saw the big thief— emblem of American +liberty—play his sharp game to the finish. I was crossing the +bridge, and by accident turned and looked upward. (By accident, I +say, but I was always doing it.) High in the air were two birds, +one chasing the other,—a fish-hawk and a young eagle with +dark head and tail. The hawk meant to save his dinner if he could. +Round and round he went, ascending at every turn, his pursuer after +him hotly. For aught I could see, he stood a good chance of escape, +till all at once another pair of wings swept into the field of my +glass.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"A third is in the race! Who is the third,</p> +<p>Speeding away swift as the eagle bird?"</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>It <i>was</i> an eagle, an adult, with head and tail white. Only +once more the osprey circled. The odds were against him, and he let +go the fish. As it fell, the old eagle swooped after it, missed it, +swooped again, and this time, long before it could reach the water, +had it fast in his claws. Then off he went, the younger one in +pursuit. They passed out of sight behind the trees of an island, +one close upon the other, and I do not know how the controversy +ended; but I would have wagered a trifle on the old white-head, the +bird of Washington.</p> +<p>The scene reminded me of one I had witnessed in Georgia a +fortnight before, on my way south. The train stopped at a backwoods +station; some of the passengers gathered upon the steps of the car, +and the usual bevy of young negroes came alongside. "Stand on my +head for a nickel?" said one. A passenger put his hand into his +pocket; the boy did as he had promised,— in no very +professional style, be it said,— and with a grin stretched +out his hand. The nickel glistened in the sun, and on the instant a +second boy sprang forward, snatched it out of the sand, and made +off in triumph amid the hilarious applause of his fellows. The +acrobat's countenance indicated a sense of injustice, and I had no +doubt that my younger eagle was similarly affected. "Where is our +boasted honor among thieves?" I imagined him asking. The bird of +freedom is a great bird, and the land of the free is a great +country. Here, let us hope, the parallel ends. Whether on the banks +of Newfoundland or elsewhere, it cannot be that the great republic +would ever snatch a fish that did not belong to it.</p> +<p>I admired the address of the fish-hawks until I saw the gannets. +Then I perceived that the hawks, with all their practice, were no +better than landlubbers. The gannets kept farther out at sea. +Sometimes a scattered flock remained in sight for the greater part +of a forenoon. With their long, sharp wings and their outstretched +necks,—like loons, but with a different flight,—they +were rakish-looking customers. Sometimes from a great height, +sometimes from a lower, sometimes at an incline, and sometimes +vertically, they plunged into the water, and after an absence of +some seconds, as it seemed, came up and rested upon the surface. +They were too far away to be closely observed, and for a time I did +not feel certain what they were. The larger number were in dark +plumage, and it was not till a white one appeared that I said with +assurance, "Gannets!" With the bright sun on him, he was indeed a +splendid bird, snowy white, with the tips of his wings jet black. +If he would have come inshore like the ospreys, I think I should +never have tired of his evolutions.</p> +<p>The gannets showed themselves only now and then, but the brown +pelicans were an every-day sight. I had found them first on the +beach at St. Augustine. Here at Daytona they never alighted on the +sand, and seldom in the water. They were always flying up or down +the beach, and, unless turned from their course by the presence of +some suspicious object, they kept straight on just above the +breakers, rising and falling with the waves; now appearing above +them, and now out of sight in the trough of the sea. Sometimes a +single bird passed, but commonly they were in small flocks. Once I +saw seventeen together,—a pretty long procession; for, +whatever their number, they went always in Indian file. Evidently +some dreadful thing would happen if two pelicans should ever travel +abreast. It was partly this unusual order of march, I suspect, +which gave such an air of preternatural gravity to their movements. +It was impossible to see even two of them go by without feeling +almost as if I were in church. First, both birds flew a rod or two +with slow and stately flappings; then, as if at some preconcerted +signal, both set their wings and scaled for about the same +distance; then they resumed their wing strokes; and so on, till +they passed out of sight. I never heard them utter a sound, or saw +them make a movement of any sort (I speak of what I saw at Daytona) +except to fly straight on, one behind another. If church +ceremonials are still open to amendment, I would suggest, in no +spirit of irreverence, that a study of pelican processionals would +be certain to yield edifying results. Nothing done in any cathedral +could be more solemn. Indeed, their solemnity was so great that I +came at last to find it almost ridiculous; but that, of course, was +only from a want of faith on the part of the beholder. The birds, +as I say, were <i>brown</i> pelicans. Had they been of the other +species, in churchly white and black, the ecclesiastical effect +would perhaps have been heightened, though such a thing is hardly +conceivable.</p> +<p>Some beautiful little gulls, peculiarly dainty in their +appearance ("Bonaparte's gulls," they are called in books, but +"surf gulls" would be a prettier and apter name), were also given +to flying along the breakers, but in a manner very different from +the pelicans'; as different, I may say, as the birds themselves. +They, too, moved steadily onward, north or south as the case might +be, but fed as they went, dropping into the shallow water between +the incoming waves, and rising again to escape the next breaker. +The action was characteristic and graceful, though often somewhat +nervous and hurried. I noticed that the birds commonly went by +twos, but that may have been nothing more than a coincidence. +Beside these small surf gulls, never at all numerous, I usually saw +a few terns, and now and then one or two rather large gulls, which, +as well as I could make out, must have been the ring-billed. It was +a strange beach, I thought, where fish-hawks invariably outnumbered +both gulls and terns.</p> +<p>Of beach birds, properly so called, I saw none but sanderlings. +They were no novelty, but I always stopped to look at them; busy as +ants, running in a body down the beach after a receding wave, and +the next moment scampering back again with all speed before an +incoming one. They tolerated no near approach, but were at once on +the wing for a long flight up or down the coast, looking like a +flock of snow-white birds as they turned their under parts to the +sun in rising above the breakers. Their manner of feeding, with the +head pitched forward, and a quick, eager movement, as if they had +eaten nothing for days, and were fearful that their present bit of +good fortune would not last, is strongly characteristic, so that +they can be recognized a long way off. As I have said, they were +the only true beach birds; but I rarely failed to see one or two +great blue herons playing that rôle. The first one filled me +with surprise. I had never thought of finding him in such a place; +but there he stood, and before I was done with Florida beaches I +had come to look upon him as one of their most constant +<i>habitués</i>. In truth, this largest of the herons is +well-nigh omnipresent in Florida. Wherever there is water, fresh or +salt, he is certain to be met with sooner or later; and even in the +driest place, if you stay there long enough, you will be likely to +see him passing overhead, on his way to the water, which is nowhere +far off. On the beach, as everywhere else, he is a model of +patience. To the best of my recollection, I never saw him catch a +fish there; and I really came to think it pathetic, the persistency +with which he would stand, with the water half way to his knees, +leaning forward expectantly toward the breakers, as if he felt that +this great and generous ocean, which had so many fish to spare, +could not fail to send him, at last, the morsel for which he was +waiting.</p> +<p>But indeed I was not long in perceiving that the Southern +climate made patience a comparatively easy virtue, and fishing, by +a natural consequence, a favorite avocation. Day after day, as I +crossed the bridges on my way to and from the beach, the same men +stood against the rail, holding their poles over the river. They +had an air of having been there all winter. I came to recognize +them, though I knew none of their names. One was peculiarly happy +looking, almost radiant, with an educated face, and only one hand. +His disability hindered him, no doubt. I never saw so much as a +sheep-head or a drum lying at his feet. But inwardly, I felt sure, +his luck was good. Another was older, fifty at least, sleek and +well dressed. He spoke pleasantly enough, if I addressed him; +otherwise he attended strictly to business. Every day he was there, +morning and afternoon. He, I think, had better fortune than any of +the others. Once I saw him land a large and handsome "speckled +trout," to the unmistakable envy of his brother anglers. Still a +third was a younger man, with a broad-brimmed straw hat and a +taciturn habit; no less persevering than Number Two, perhaps, but +far less successful. I marveled a little at their enthusiasm (there +were many beside these), and they, in their turn, did not +altogether conceal their amusement at the foibles of a man, still +out of Bedlam, who walked and walked and walked, always with a +field-glass protruding from his side pocket, which now and then he +pulled out suddenly and leveled at nothing. It is one of the +merciful ameliorations of this present evil world that men are thus +mutually entertaining.</p> +<p>These anglers were to be congratulated. Ordered South by their +physicians,—as most of them undoubtedly were,—compelled +to spend the winter away from friends and business, amid all the +discomforts of Southern hotels, they were happy in having at least +one thing which they loved to do. Blessed is the invalid who has an +outdoor hobby. One man, whom I met more than once in my beach +rambles, seemed to devote himself to bathing, running, and walking. +He looked like an athlete; I heard him tell how far he could run +without getting "winded;" and as he sprinted up and down the sand +in his scanty bathing costume, I always found him a pleasing +spectacle. Another runner there gave me a half-hour of amusement +that turned at the last to a feeling of almost painful sympathy. He +was not in bathing costume, nor did he look particularly athletic. +He was teaching his young lady to ride a bicycle, and his pupil was +at that most interesting stage of a learner's career when the +machine is beginning to steady itself. With a very little +assistance she went bravely, while at the same time the young man +felt it necessary not to let go his hold upon her for more than a +few moments at once. At all events, he must be with her at the +turn. She plied the pedals with vigor, and he ran alongside or +behind, as best he could; she excited, and he out of breath. Back +and forth they went, and it was a relief to me when finally he took +off his coat. I left him still panting in his fair one's wake, and +hoped it would not turn out a case of "love's labor's lost." Let us +hope, too, that he was not an invalid.</p> +<p>While speaking of these my companions in idleness, I may as well +mention an older man,—a rural philosopher, he seemed,— +whom I met again and again, always in search of shells. He was from +Indiana, he told me with agreeable garrulity. His grandchildren +would like the shells. He had perhaps made a mistake in coming so +far south. It was pretty warm, he thought, and he feared the change +would be too great when he went home again. If a man's lungs were +bad, he ought to go to a warm place, of course. <i>He</i> came for +his stomach, which was now pretty well,—a capital proof of +the superior value of fresh air over "proper" food in dyspeptic +troubles; for if there is anywhere in the world a place in which a +delicate stomach would fare worse than in a Southern hotel, +—of the second or third class,—may none but my enemies +ever find it. Seashell collecting is not a panacea. For a disease +like old age, for instance, it might prove to be an alleviation +rather than a cure; but taken long enough, and with a sufficient +mixture of enthusiasm,—a true <i>sine qua non</i>,—it +will be found efficacious, I believe, in all ordinary cases of +dyspepsia.</p> +<p>My Indiana man was far from being alone in his cheerful pursuit. +If strangers, men or women, met me on the beach and wished to say +something more than good-morning, they were sure to ask, "Have you +found any pretty shells?" One woman was a collector of a more +businesslike turn. She had brought a camp-stool, and when I first +saw her in the distance was removing her shoes, and putting on +rubber boots. Then she moved her stool into the surf, sat upon it +with a tin pail beside her, and, leaning forward over the water, +fell to doing something,—I could not tell what. She was so +industrious that I did not venture to disturb her, as I passed; but +an hour or two afterward I overtook her going homeward across the +peninsula with her invalid husband, and she showed me her pail full +of the tiny coquina clams, which she said were very nice for soup, +as indeed I knew. Some days later, I found a man collecting them +for the market, with the help of a horse and a cylindrical wire +roller. With his trousers rolled to his knees, he waded in the +surf, and shoveled the incoming water and sand into the wire roller +through an aperture left for that purpose. Then he closed the +aperture, and drove the horse back and forth through the breakers +till the clams were washed clear of the sand, after which he poured +them out into a shallow tray like a long bread-pan, and transferred +them from that to a big bag. I came up just in time to see them in +the tray, bright with all the colors of the rainbow. "Will you hold +the bag open?" he said. I was glad to help (it was perhaps the only +useful ten minutes that I passed in Florida); and so, counting +quart by quart, he dished them into it. There were thirty odd +quarts, but he wanted a bushel and a quarter, and again took up the +shovel. The clams themselves were not, canned and shipped, he said, +but only the "juice."</p> +<p>Many rudely built cottages stood on the sand-hills just behind +the beach, especially at the points, a mile or so apart, where the +two Daytona bridge roads come out of the scrub; and one day, while +walking up the beach to Ormond, I saw before me a much more +elaborate Queen Anne house. Fancifully but rather neatly painted, +and with a stable to match, it looked like an exotic. As I drew +near, its venerable owner was at work in front of it, shoveling a +path through the sand,—just as, at that moment (February 24), +thousands of Yankee householders were shoveling paths through the +snow, which then was reported by the newspapers to be seventeen +inches deep in the streets of Boston. His reverend air and his long +black coat proclaimed him a clergyman past all possibility of +doubt. He seemed to have got to heaven before death, the place was +so attractive; but being still in a body terrestrial, he may have +found the meat market rather distant, and mosquitoes and sand-flies +sometimes a plague. As I walked up the beach, he drove by me in an +open wagon with a hired man. They kept on till they came to a log +which had been cast up by the sea, and evidently had been sighted +from the house. The hired man lifted it into the wagon, and they +drove back,—quite a stirring adventure, I imagined; an event +to date from, at the very least.</p> +<p>The smaller cottages were nearly all empty at that season. At +different times I made use of many of them, when the sun was hot, +or I had been long afoot. Once I was resting thus on a flight of +front steps, when a three-seated carriage came down the beach and +pulled up opposite. The driver wished to ask me a question, I +thought; no doubt I looked very much at home. From the day I had +entered Florida, every one I met had seemed to know me intuitively +for a New Englander, and most of them—I could not imagine +how—had divined that I came from Boston. It gratified me to +believe that I was losing a little of my provincial manner, under +the influence of more extended travel. But my pride had a sudden +fall. The carriage stopped, as I said; but instead of inquiring the +way, the driver alighted, and all the occupants of the carriage +proceeded to do the same,—eight women, with baskets and +sundries. It was time for me to be starting. I descended the steps, +and pulled off my hat to the first comer, who turned out to be the +proprietor of the establishment. With a gracious smile, she hoped +they were "not frightening me away." She and her friends had come +for a day's picnic at the cottage. Things being as they were (eight +women), she could hardly invite me to share the festivities, and, +with my best apology for the intrusion, I withdrew.</p> +<p>Of one building on the sand-hills I have peculiarly pleasant +recollections. It was not a cottage, but had evidently been put up +as a public resort; especially, as I inferred, for Sunday-school or +parish picnics. It was furnished with a platform for speech-making +(is there any foolishness that men will not commit on sea beaches +and mountain tops?), and, what was more to my purpose, was open on +three sides. I passed a good deal of time there, first and last, +and once it sheltered me from a drenching shower of an hour or two. +The lightning was vivid, and the rain fell in sheets. In the midst +of the blackness and commotion, a single tern, ghostly white, flew +past, and toward the close a bunch of sanderlings came down the +edge of the breakers, still looking for something to eat. The only +other living things in sight were two young fellows, who had +improved the opportunity to try a dip in the surf. Their color +indicated that they were not yet hardened to open-air bathing, and +from their actions it was evident that they found the ocean cool. +They were wet enough before they were done, but it was mostly with +fresh water. Probably they took no harm; but I am moved to remark, +in passing, that I sometimes wondered how generally physicians who +order patients to Florida for the winter caution them against +imprudent exposure. To me, who am no doctor, it seemed none too +safe for young women with consumptive tendencies to be out sailing +in open boats on winter evenings, no matter how warm the afternoon +had been, while I saw one case where a surf bath taken by such an +invalid was followed by a day of prostration and fever. "We who +live here," said a resident, "don't think the water is warm enough +yet; but for these Northern folks it is a great thing to go into +the surf in February, and you can't keep them out."</p> +<p>The rows of cottages of which I have spoken were in one sense a +detriment to the beach; but on the whole, and in their present +deserted condition, I found them an advantage. It was easy enough +to walk away from them, if a man wanted the feeling of utter +solitude (the beach extends from Matanzas Inlet to Mosquito Inlet, +thirty-five miles, more or less); while at other times they not +only furnished shadow and a seat, but, with the paths and little +clearings behind them, were an attraction to many birds. Here I +found my first Florida jays. They sat on the chimney-tops and +ridgepoles, and I was rejoiced to discover that these unique and +interesting creatures, one of the special objects of my journey +South, were not only common, but to an extraordinary degree +approachable. Their extreme confidence in man is one of their +oddest characteristics. I heard from more than one person how +easily and "in almost no time" they could be tamed, if indeed they +needed taming. A resident of Hawks Park told me that they used to +come into his house and stand upon the corners of the dinner table +waiting for their share of the meal. When he was hoeing in the +garden, they would perch on his hat, and stay there by the hour, +unless he drove them off. He never did anything to tame them except +to treat them kindly. When a brood was old enough to leave the +nest, the parents brought the youngsters up to the doorstep as a +matter of course.</p> +<p>The Florida jay, a bird of the scrub, is not to be confounded +with the Florida <i>blue</i> jay (a smaller and less conspicuously +crested duplicate of our common Northern bird), to which it bears +little resemblance either in personal appearance or in voice. Seen +from behind, its aspect is peculiarly striking; the head, wings, +rump, and tail being dark blue, with an almost rectangular patch of +gray set in the midst. Its beak is very stout, and its tail very +long; and though it would attract attention anywhere, it is hardly +to be called handsome or graceful. Its notes—such of them as +I heard, that is— are mostly guttural, with little or nothing +of the screaming quality which distinguishes the blue jay's voice. +To my ear they were often suggestive of the Northern shrike.</p> +<p>On the 23d of February I was standing on the rear piazza of one +of the cottages, when a jay flew into the oak and palmetto scrub +close by. A second glance, and I saw that she was busy upon a nest. +When she had gone, I moved nearer, and waited. She did not return, +and I descended the steps and went to the edge of the thicket to +inspect her work: a bulky affair,—nearly done, I +thought,—loosely constructed of pretty large twigs. I had +barely returned to the veranda before the bird appeared again. This +time I was in a position to look squarely in upon her. She had some +difficulty in edging her way through the dense bushes with a long, +branching stick in her bill; but she accomplished the feat, fitted +the new material into its place, readjusted the other twigs a bit +here and there, and then, as she rose to depart, she looked me +suddenly in the face and stopped, as much as to say, "Well, well! +here's a pretty go! A man spying upon me!" I wondered whether she +would throw up the work, but in another minute she was back again +with another twig. The nest, I should have said, was about four +feet from the ground, and perhaps twenty feet from the cottage. +Four days later, I found her sitting upon it. She flew off as I +came up, and I pushed into the scrub far enough to thrust my hand +into the nest, which, to my disappointment, was empty. In fact, it +was still far from completed; for on the 3d of March, when I paid +it a farewell visit, its owner was still at work lining it with +fine grass. At that time it was a comfortable-looking and really +elaborate structure. Both the birds came to look at me as I stood +on the piazza. They perched together on the top of a stake so +narrow that there was scarcely room for their feet; and as they +stood thus, side by side, one of them struck its beak several times +against the beak of the other, as if in play. I wished them joy of +their expected progeny, and was the more ready to believe they +would have it for this little display of sportive +sentimentality.</p> +<p>It was a distinguished company that frequented that row of +narrow back yards on the edge of the sand-hills. As a new-comer, I +found the jays (sometimes there were ten under my eye at once) the +most entertaining members of it, but if I had been a dweller there +for the summer, I should perhaps have altered my opinion; for the +group contained four of the finest of Floridian +songsters,—the mocking-bird, the brown thrasher, the cardinal +grosbeak, and the Carolina wren. Rare morning and evening concerts +those cottagers must have. And besides these there were catbirds, +ground doves, red-eyed chewinks, white-eyed chewinks, a song +sparrow (one of the few that I saw in Florida), savanna sparrows, +myrtle birds, redpoll warblers, a phoebe, and two flickers. The +last-named birds, by the way, are never backward about displaying +their tender feelings. A treetop flirtation is their special +delight (I hope my readers have all seen one; few things of the +sort are better worth looking at), and here, in the absence of +trees, they had taken to the ridgepole of a house.</p> +<p>More than once I remarked white-breasted swallows straggling +northward along the line of sand-hills. They were in loose order, +but the movement was plainly concerted, with all the look of a +vernal migration. This swallow, the first of its family to arrive +in New England, remains in Florida throughout the winter, but is +known also to go as far south as Central America. The purple +martins—which, so far as I am aware, do not winter in +Florida—had already begun to make their appearance. While +crossing the bridge, February 22, I was surprised to notice two of +them sitting upon a bird-box over the draw, which just then stood +open for the passage of a tug-boat. The toll-gatherer told me they +had come "from some place" eight or ten days before. His attention +had been called to them by his cat, who was trying to get up to the +box to bid them welcome. He believed that she discovered them +within three minutes of their arrival. It seemed not unlikely. In +its own way a cat is a pretty sharp ornithologist.</p> +<p>One or two cormorants were almost always about the river. +Sometimes they sat upon stakes in a patriotic, spread-eagle +(American eagle) attitude, as if drying their wings,—a +curious sight till one became accustomed to it. Snakebirds and +buzzards resort to the same device, but I cannot recall ever seeing +any Northern bird thus engaged. From the south bridge I one morning +saw, to my great satisfaction, a couple of white pelicans, the only +ones that I found in Florida, though I was assured that within +twenty years they had been common along the Halifax and +Hillsborough rivers. My birds were flying up the river at a good +height. The brown pelicans, on the other hand, made their daily +pilgrimages just above the level of the water, as has been already +described, and were never over the river, but off the beach.</p> +<p>All in all, there are few pleasanter walks in Florida, I +believe, than the beach-round at Daytona, out by one bridge and +back by the other. An old hotel-keeper—a rural Yankee, if one +could tell anything by his look and speech—said to me in a +burst of confidence, "Yes, we've got a climate, and that's about +all we have got,—climate and sand." I could not entirely +agree with him. For myself, I found not only fine days, but fine +prospects. But there was no denying the sand.</p> +<a name="hillsborough"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH.</h2> +<p>Wherever a walker lives, he finds sooner or later one favorite +road. So it was with me at New Smyrna, where I lived for three +weeks. I had gone there for the sake of the river, and my first +impulse was to take the road that runs southerly along its bank. At +the time I thought it the most beautiful road I had found in +Florida, nor have I seen any great cause since to alter that +opinion. With many pleasant windings (beautiful roads are never +straight, nor unnecessarily wide, which is perhaps the reason why +our rural authorities devote themselves so madly to the work of +straightening and widening), —with many pleasant windings, I +say,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"The grace of God made manifest in curves,"</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>it follows the edge of the hammock, having the river on one +side, and the forest on the other. It was afternoon when I first +saw it. Then it is shaded from the sun, while the river and its +opposite bank have on them a light more beautiful than can be +described or imagined; a light—with reverence for the poet of +nature be it spoken—a light that never was <i>except</i> on +sea or land. The poet's dream was never equal to it.</p> +<p>In a flat country stretches of water are doubly welcome. They +take the place of hills, and give the eye what it +craves,—distance; which softens angles, conceals details, and +heightens colors,—in short, transfigures the world with its +romancer's touch, and blesses us with illusion. So, as I loitered +along the south road, I never tired of looking across the river to +the long, wooded island, and over that to the line of sand-hills +that marked the eastern rim of the East Peninsula, beyond which was +the Atlantic. The white crests of the hills made the sharper points +of the horizon line. Elsewhere clumps of nearer pine-trees +intervened, while here and there a tall palmetto stood, or seemed +to stand, on the highest and farthest ridge looking seaward. But +particulars mattered little. The blue water, the pale, changeable +grayish-green of the low island woods, the deeper green of the +pines, the unnamable hues of the sky, the sunshine that flooded it +all, these were beauty enough;—beauty all the more keenly +enjoyed because for much of the way it was seen only by glimpses, +through vistas of palmetto and live-oak. Sometimes the road came +quite out of the woods, as it rounded a turn of the hammock. Then I +stopped to gaze long at the scene. Elsewhere I pushed through the +hedge at favorable points, and sat, or stood, looking up and down +the river. A favorite seat was the prow of an old row-boat, which +lay, falling to pieces, high and dry upon the sand. It had made its +last cruise, but I found it still useful.</p> +<p>The river is shallow. At low tide sandbars and oyster-beds +occupy much of its breadth; and even when it looked full, a great +blue heron would very likely be wading in the middle of it. That +was a sight to which I had grown accustomed in Florida, where this +bird, familiarly known as "the major," is apparently ubiquitous. +Too big to be easily hidden, it is also, as a general thing, too +wary to be approached within gunshot. I am not sure that I ever +came within sight of one, no matter how suddenly or how far away, +that it did not give evidence of having seen me first. Long legs, +long wings, a long bill—and long sight and long patience: +such is the tall bird's dowry. Good and useful qualities, all of +them. Long may they avail to put off the day of their owner's +extermination.</p> +<p>The major is scarcely a bird of which you can make a pet in your +mind, as you may of the chickadee, for instance, or the bluebird, +or the hermit thrush. He does not lend himself naturally to such +imaginary endearments. But it is pleasant to have him on one's +daily beat. I should count it one compensation for having to live +in Florida instead of in Massachusetts (but I might require a good +many others) that I should see him a hundred times as often. In +walking down the river road I seldom saw less than half a dozen; +not together (the major, like fishermen in general, is of an +unsocial turn), but here one and there one,—on a sand-bar far +out in the river, or in some shallow bay, or on the submerged edge +of an oyster-flat. Wherever he was, he always looked as if he might +be going to do something presently; even now, perhaps, the matter +was on his mind; but at this moment—well, there are times +when a heron's strength is to stand still. Certainly he seemed in +no danger of overeating. A cracker told me that the major made an +excellent dish if killed on the full of the moon. I wondered at +that qualification, but my informant explained himself. The bird, +he said, feeds mostly at night, and fares best with the moon to +help him. If the reader would dine off roast blue heron, therefore, +as I hope I never shall, let him mind the lunar phases. But think +of the gastronomic ups and downs of a bird that is fat and lean by +turns twelve times a year! Possibly my informant overstated the +case; but in any event I would trust the major to bear himself like +a philosopher. If there is any one of God's creatures that can wait +for what he wants, it must be the great blue heron.</p> +<p>I have spoken of his caution. If he was patrolling a shallow on +one side of an oyster-bar,—at the rate, let us say, of two +steps a minute,—and took it into his head (an inappropriate +phrase, as conveying an idea of something like suddenness) to try +the water on the other side, he did not spread his wings, as a +matter of course, and fly over. First he put up his head—an +operation that makes another bird of him— and looked in all +directions. How could he tell what enemy might be lying in wait? +And having alighted on the other side (his manner of alighting is +one of his prettiest characteristics), he did not at once draw in +his neck till his bill protruded on a level with his body, and +resume his labors, but first he looked once more all about him. It +was a good <i>habit</i> to do that, anyhow, and he meant to run no +risks. If "the race of birds was created out of innocent, +light-minded men, whose thoughts were directed toward heaven," +according to the word of Plato, then <i>Ardea herodias</i> must +long ago have fallen from grace. I imagine his state of mind to be +always like that of our pilgrim fathers in times of Indian +massacres. When they went after the cows or to hoe the corn, they +took their guns with them, and turned no corner without a sharp +lookout against ambush. No doubt such a condition of affairs has +this advantage, that it makes ennui impossible. There is always +something to live for, if it be only to avoid getting killed.</p> +<p>After this manner did the Hillsborough River majors all behave +themselves until my very last walk beside it. Then I found the +exception,—the exception that is as good as inevitable in the +case of any bird, if the observation be carried far enough. He (or +she; there was no telling which it was) stood on the sandy beach, a +splendid creature in full nuptial garb, two black plumes nodding +jauntily from its crown, and masses of soft elongated feathers +draping its back and lower neck. Nearer and nearer I approached, +till I must have been within a hundred feet; but it stood as if on +dress parade, exulting to be looked at. Let us hope it never +carried itself thus gayly when the wrong man came along.</p> +<p>Near the major—not keeping him company, but feeding in the +same shallows and along the same oyster-bars—were constantly +to be seen two smaller relatives of his, the little blue heron and +the Louisiana. The former is what is called a dichromatic species; +some of the birds are blue, and others white. On the Hillsborough, +it seemed to me that white specimens predominated; but possibly +that was because they were so much more conspicuous. Sunlight +favors the white feather; no other color shows so quickly or so +far. If you are on the beach and catch sight of a bird far out at +sea,—a gull or a tern, a gannet or a loon,—it is +invariably the white parts that are seen first. And so the little +white heron might stand never so closely against the grass or the +bushes on the further shore of the river, and the eye could not +miss him. If he had been a blue one, at that distance, ten to one +he would have escaped me. Besides, I was more on the alert for +white ones, because I was always hoping to find one of them with +black legs. In other words, I was looking for the little white +egret, a bird concerning which, thanks to the murderous work of +plume-hunters,—thanks, also, to those good women who pay for +having the work done,—I must confess that I went to Florida +and came home again without certainly seeing it.</p> +<p>The heron with which I found myself especially taken was the +Louisiana; a bird of about the same size as the little blue, but +with an air of daintiness and lightness that is quite its own, and +quite indescribable. When it rose upon the wing, indeed, it seemed +almost <i>too</i> light, almost unsteady, as if it lacked ballast, +like a butterfly. It was the most numerous bird of its tribe along +the river, I think, and, with one exception, the most approachable. +That exception was the green heron, which frequented the flats +along the village front, and might well have been mistaken for a +domesticated bird; letting you walk across a plank directly over +its head while it squatted upon the mud, and when disturbed flying +into a fig-tree before the hotel piazza, just as the dear little +ground doves were in the habit of doing. To me, who had hitherto +seen the green heron in the wildest of places, this tameness was an +astonishing sight. It would be hard to say which surprised me more, +the New Smyrna green herons or the St. Augustine sparrow-hawks, +—which latter treated me very much as I am accustomed to +being treated by village-bred robins in Massachusetts.</p> +<p>The Louisiana heron was my favorite, as I say, but incomparably +the handsomest member of the family (I speak of such as I saw) was +the great white egret. In truth, the epithet "handsome" seems +almost a vulgarism as applied to a creature so superb, so utterly +and transcendently splendid. I saw it—in a way to be sure of +it—only once. Then, on an island in the Hillsborough, two +birds stood in the dead tops of low shrubby trees, fully exposed in +the most favorable of lights, their long dorsal trains drooping +behind them and swaying gently in the wind. I had never seen +anything so magnificent. And when I returned, two or three hours +afterward, from a jaunt up the beach to Mosquito Inlet, there they +still were, as if they had not stirred in all that time. The reader +should understand that this egret is between four and five feet in +length, and measures nearly five feet from wing tip to wing tip, +and that its plumage throughout is of spotless white. It is pitiful +to think how constantly a bird of that size and color must be in +danger of its life.</p> +<p>Happily, the lawmakers of the State have done something of +recent years for the protection of such defenseless beauties. +Happily, too, shooting from the river boats is no longer +permitted,—on the regular lines, that is. I myself saw a +young gentleman stand on the deck of an excursion steamer, with a +rifle, and do his worst to kill or maim every living thing that +came in sight, from a spotted sandpiper to a turkey buzzard! I call +him a "gentleman;" he was in gentle company, and the fact that he +chewed gum industriously would, I fear, hardly invalidate his claim +to that title. The narrow river wound in and out between low, +densely wooded banks, and the beauty of the shifting scene was +enough almost to take one's breath away; but the crack of the rifle +was not the less frequent on that account. Perhaps the sportsman +was a Southerner, to whom river scenery of that enchanting kind was +an old story. More likely he was a Northerner, one of the men who +thank Heaven they are "not sentimental."</p> +<p>In my rambles up and down the river road I saw few water birds +beside the herons. Two or three solitary cormorants would be +shooting back and forth at a furious rate, or swimming in +midstream; and sometimes a few spotted sandpipers and killdeer +plovers were feeding along the shore. Once in a great while a +single gull or tern made its appearance,—just often enough to +keep me wondering why they were not there oftener,—and one +day a water turkey went suddenly over my head and dropped into the +river on the farther side of the island. I was glad to see this +interesting creature for once in salt water; for the Hillsborough, +like the Halifax and the Indian rivers, is a river in name +only,—a river by brevet, —being, in fact, a salt-water +lagoon or sound between the mainland and the eastern peninsula.</p> +<p>Fish-hawks were always in sight, and bald eagles were seldom +absent altogether. Sometimes an eagle stood perched on a dead tree +on an island. Oftener I heard a scream, and looked up to see one +sailing far overhead, or chasing an osprey. On one such occasion, +when the hawk seemed to be making a losing fight, a third bird +suddenly intervened, and the eagle, as I thought, was driven away. +"Good for the brotherhood of fish-hawks!" I exclaimed. But at that +moment I put my glass on the new-comer; and behold, he was not a +hawk, but another eagle. Meanwhile the hawk had disappeared with +his fish, and I was left to ponder the mystery.</p> +<p>As for the wood, the edge of the hammock, through which the road +passes, there were no birds in it. It was one of those places (I +fancy every bird-gazer must have had experience of such) where it +is a waste of time to seek them. I could walk down the road for two +miles and back again, and then sit in my room at the hotel for +fifteen minutes, and see more wood birds, and more kinds of them, +in one small live-oak before the window than I had seen in the +whole four miles; and that not once and by accident, but again and +again. In affairs of this kind it is useless to contend. The spot +looks favorable, you say, and nobody can deny it; there must be +birds there, plenty of them; your missing them to-day was a matter +of chance; you will try again. And you try again—and +again—and yet again. But in the end you have to acknowledge +that, for some reason unknown to you, the birds have agreed to give +that place the go-by.</p> +<p>One bird, it is true, I found in this hammock, and not +elsewhere: a single oven-bird, which, with one Northern water +thrush and one Louisiana water thrush, completed my set of Florida +<i>Seiuri</i>. Besides him I recall one hermit thrush, a few +cedar-birds, a house wren, chattering at a great rate among the +"bootjacks" (leaf-stalks) of an overturned palmetto-tree, with an +occasional mocking-bird, cardinal grosbeak, prairie warbler, yellow +redpoll, myrtle bird, ruby-crowned kinglet, phoebe, and flicker. In +short, there were no birds at all, except now and then an +accidental straggler of a kind that could be found almost anywhere +else in indefinite numbers.</p> +<p>And as it was not the presence of birds that made the river road +attractive, so neither was it any unwonted display of blossoms. +Beside a similar road along the bank of the Halifax, in Daytona, +grew multitudes of violets, and goodly patches of purple verbena +(garden plants gone wild, perhaps), and a fine profusion of +spiderwort, —a pretty flower, the bluest of the blue, thrice +welcome to me as having been one of the treasures of the very first +garden of which I have any remembrance. "Indigo plant," we called +it then. Here, however, on the way from New Smyrna to Hawks Park, I +recall no violets, nor any verbena or spiderwort. Yellow +wood-sorrel (oxalis) was here, of course, as it was everywhere. It +dotted the grass in Florida very much as five-fingers do in +Massachusetts, I sometimes thought. And the creeping, round-leaved +houstonia was here, with a superfluity of a weedy blue sage +(<i>Salvia lyrata</i>). Here, also, as in Daytona, I found a +strikingly handsome tufted plant, a highly varnished evergreen, +which I persisted in taking for a fern—the sterile +fronds—in spite of repeated failures to find it described by +Dr. Chapman under that head, until at last an excellent woman came +to my help with the information that it was "coontie" (<i>Zamia +integrifolia</i>), famous as a plant out of which the Southern +people made bread in war time. This confession of botanical +amateurishness and incompetency will be taken, I hope, as rather to +my credit than otherwise; but it would be morally worthless if I +did not add the story of another plant, which, in this same New +Smyrna hammock, I frequently noticed hanging in loose bunches, like +blades of flaccid deep green grass, from the trunks of cabbage +palmettos. The tufts were always out of reach, and I gave them no +particular thought; and it was not until I got home to +Massachusetts, and then almost by accident, that I learned what +they were. They, it turned out, <i>were</i> ferns (<i>Vittaria +lineata</i>—grass fern), and my discomfiture was +complete.</p> +<p>This comparative dearth of birds and flowers was not in all +respects a disadvantage. On the contrary, to a naturalist blessed +now and then with a supernaturalistic mood, it made the place, on +occasion, a welcome retreat. Thus, one afternoon, as I remember, I +had been reading Keats, the only book I had brought with +me,—not counting manuals, of course, which come under another +head,—and by and by started once more for the pine lands by +the way of the cotton-shed hammock, "to see what I could see." But +poetry had spoiled me just then for anything like scientific +research, and as I waded through the ankle-deep sand I said to +myself all at once, "No, no! What do I care for another new bird? I +want to see the beauty of the world." With that I faced about, and, +taking a side track, made as directly as possible for the river +road. There I should have a mind at ease, with no unfamiliar, +tantalizing bird note to set my curiosity on edge, nor any sand +through which to be picking my steps.</p> +<p>The river road is paved with oyster-shells. If any reader thinks +that statement prosaic or unimportant, then he has never lived in +southern Florida. In that part of the world all new-comers have to +take walking-lessons; unless, indeed, they have already served an +apprenticeship on Cape Cod, or in some other place equally +arenarious. My own lesson I got at second hand, and on a Sunday. It +was at New Smyrna, in the village. Two women were behind me, on +their way home from church, and one of them was complaining of the +sand, to which she was not yet used. "Yes," said the other, "I +found it pretty hard walking at first, but I learned after a while +that the best way is to set the heel down hard, as hard as you can; +then the sand doesn't give under you so much, and you get along +more comfortably." I wonder whether she noticed, just in front of +her, a man who began forthwith to bury his boot heel at every +step?</p> +<p>In such a country (the soil is said to be good for orange-trees, +but they do not have to walk) roads of powdered shell are veritable +luxuries, and land agents are quite right in laying all stress upon +them as inducements to possible settlers. If the author of the +Apocalypse had been raised in Florida, we should never have had the +streets of the New Jerusalem paved with gold. His idea of heaven, +would have been different from that; more personal and home-felt, +we may be certain.</p> +<p>The river road, then, as I have said, and am glad to say again, +was shell-paved. And well it might be; for the hammock, along the +edge of which it meandered, seemed, in some places at least, to be +little more than a pile of oyster-shells, on which soil had somehow +been deposited, and over which a forest was growing. Florida +Indians have left an evil memory. I heard a philanthropic visitor +lamenting that she had talked with many of the people about them, +and had yet to hear a single word said in their favor. Somebody +might have been good enough to say that, with all their faults, +they had given to eastern Florida a few hills, such as they are, +and at present are supplying it, indirectly, with comfortable +highways. How they must have feasted, to leave such heaps of shells +behind them! They came to the coast on purpose, we may suppose. +Well, the red-men are gone, but the oyster-beds remain; and if +winter refugees continue to pour in this direction, as doubtless +they will, they too will eat a "heap" of oysters (it is easy to see +how the vulgar Southern use of that word may have originated), and +in the course of time, probably, the shores of the Halifax and the +Hillsborough will be a fine mountainous country! And then, if this +ancient, nineteenth-century prediction is remembered, the highest +peak of the range will perhaps be named in a way which the innate +modesty of the prophet restrains him from specifying with greater +particularity.</p> +<p>Meanwhile it is long to wait, and tourists and residents alike +must find what comfort they can in the lesser hills which, thanks +to the good appetite of their predecessors, are already theirs. For +my own part, there is one such eminence of which I cherish the most +grateful recollections. It stands (or stood; the road-makers had +begun carting it away) at a bend in the road just south of one of +the Turnbull canals. I climbed it often (it can hardly be less than +fifteen or twenty feet above the level of the sea), and spent more +than one pleasant hour upon its grassy summit. Northward was New +Smyrna, a village in the woods, and farther away towered the +lighthouse of Mosquito Inlet. Along the eastern sky stretched the +long line of the peninsula sand-hills, between the white crests of +which could be seen the rude cottages of Coronado beach. To the +south and west was the forest, and in front, at my feet, lay the +river with its woody islands. Many times have I climbed a mountain +and felt myself abundantly repaid by an off-look less beautiful. +This was the spot to which I turned when I had been reading Keats, +and wanted to see the beauty of the world. Here were a grassy seat, +the shadow of orange-trees, and a wide prospect. In Florida, I +found no better place in which a man who wished to be both a +naturalist and a nature-lover, who felt himself heir to a double +inheritance,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part,"</p> +<p>could for the time sit still and be happy.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The orange-trees yielded other things beside shadow, though +perhaps nothing better than that. They were resplendent with fruit, +and on my earlier visits were also in bloom. One did not need to +climb the hill to learn the fact. For an out-of-door sweetness it +would be hard, I think, to improve upon the scent of orange +blossoms. As for the oranges themselves, they seemed to be in +little demand, large and handsome as they were. Southern people in +general, I fancy, look upon wild fruit of this kind as not exactly +edible. I remember asking two colored men in Tallahassee whether +the oranges still hanging conspicuously from a tree just over the +wall (a sight not so very common in that part of the State) were +sweet or sour. I have forgotten just what they said, but I remember +how they <i>looked</i>. I meant the inquiry as a mild bit of humor, +but to them it was a thousandfold better than that: it was wit +ineffable. What Shakespeare said about the prosperity of a jest was +never more strikingly exemplified. In New Smyrna, with orange +groves on every hand, the wild fruit went begging with natives and +tourists alike; so that I feel a little hesitancy about confessing +my own relish for it, lest I should be accused of affectation. Not +that I devoured wild oranges by the dozen, or in place of sweet +ones; one sour orange goes a good way, as the common saying is; but +I ate them, nevertheless, or rather drank them, and found them, in +a thirsty hour, decidedly refreshing.</p> +<p>The unusual coldness of the past season (Florida winters, from +what I heard about them, must have fallen of late into a queer +habit of being regularly exceptional) had made it difficult to buy +sweet oranges that were not dry and "punky"<a id="footnotetag4" +name="footnotetag4"></a><a href="#footnote4"><sup>4</sup></a> +toward the stem; but the hardier wild fruit had weathered the +frost, and was so juicy that, as I say, you did not so much eat one +as drink it. As for the taste, it was a wholesome bitter-sour, as +if a lemon had been flavored with quinine; not quite so sour as a +lemon, perhaps, nor <i>quite</i> so bitter as Peruvian bark, but, +as it were, an agreeable compromise between the two. When I drank +one, I not only quenched my thirst, but felt that I had taken an +infallible prophylactic against the malarial fever. Better still, I +had surprised myself. For one who had felt a lifelong distaste, +unsocial and almost unmanly, for the bitter drinks which humanity +in general esteems so essential to its health and comfort, I was +developing new and unexpected capabilities; than which few things +can be more encouraging as years increase upon a man's head, and +the world seems to be closing in about him.</p> +<p>Later in the season, on this same shell mound, I might have +regaled myself with fresh figs. Here, at any rate, was a +thrifty-looking fig-tree, though its crop, if it bore one, would +perhaps not have waited my coming so patiently as the oranges had +done. Here, too, was a red cedar; and to me, who, in my ignorance, +had always thought of this tough little evergreen as especially at +home on my own bleak and stony hillsides, it seemed an incongruous +trio,—fig-tree, orange-tree, and savin. In truth, the cedars +of Florida were one of my liveliest surprises. At first I refused +to believe that they were red cedars, so strangely exuberant were +they, so disdainful of the set, cone-shaped, toy-tree pattern on +which I had been used to seeing red cedars built. And when at last +a study of the flora compelled me to admit their identity,<a id= +"footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></a><a href= +"#footnote5"><sup>5</sup></a> I turned about and protested that I +had never seen red cedars before. One, in St. Augustine, near San +Marco Avenue, I had the curiosity to measure. The girth of the +trunk at the smallest place was six feet five inches, and the +spread of the branches was not less than fifty feet.</p> +<p>The stroller in this road suffered few distractions. The houses, +two or three to the mile, stood well back in the woods, with little +or no cleared land about them. Picnic establishments they seemed to +a Northern eye, rather than permanent dwellings. At one point, in +the hammock, a rude camp was occupied by a group of rough-looking +men and several small children, who seemed to be getting on as best +they could—none too well, to judge from +appearances—without feminine ministrations. What they were +there for I never made out. They fished, I think, but whether by +way of amusement or as a serious occupation I did not learn. +Perhaps, like the Indians of old, they had come to the river for +the oyster season. They might have done worse. They never paid the +slightest attention to me, nor once gave me any decent excuse for +engaging them in talk. The best thing I remember about them was a +tableau caught in passing. A "norther" had descended upon us +unexpectedly (Florida is not a whit behind the rest of the world in +sudden changes of temperature), and while hastening homeward, +toward nightfall, hugging myself to keep warm, I saw, in the woods, +this group of campers disposed about a lively blaze.</p> +<p>Let us be thankful, say I, that memory is so little the servant +of the will. Chance impressions of this kind, unforeseen, +involuntary, and inexplicable, make one of the chief delights of +traveling, or rather of having traveled. In the present case, +indeed, the permanence of the impression is perhaps not altogether +beyond the reach of a plausible conjecture. We have not always +lived in houses; and if we love the sight of a fire +out-of-doors,—a camp-fire, that is to say, —as we all +do, so that the, burning of a brush-heap in a neighbor's yard will +draw us to the window, the feeling is but part of an ancestral +inheritance. We have come by it honestly, as the phrase is. And so +I need not scruple to set down another reminiscence of the same +kind,—an early morning street scene, of no importance in +itself, in the village of New Smyrna. It may have been on the +morning next after the "norther" just mentioned. I cannot say. We +had two or three such touches of winter in early March; none of +them at all distressing, be it understood, to persons in ordinary +health. One night water froze,—"as thick as a silver +dollar,"—and orange growers were alarmed for the next +season's crop, the trees being just ready to blossom. Some men kept +fires burning in their orchards overnight; a pretty spectacle, I +should think, especially where the fruit was still ungathered. On +one of these frosty mornings, then, I saw a solitary horseman, not +"wending his way," but warming his hands over a fire that he had +built for that purpose in the village street. One might live and +die in a New England village without seeing such a sight. A Yankee +would have betaken himself to the corner grocery. But here, though +that "adjunct of civilization" was directly across the way, most +likely it had never had a stove in it. The sun would give warmth +enough in an hour,—by nine o'clock one would probably be glad +of a sunshade; but the man was chilly after his ride; it was still +a bit early to go about the business that had brought him into +town: what more natural than to hitch his horse, get together a few +sticks, and kindle a blaze? What an insane idea it would have +seemed to him that a passing stranger might remember him and his +fire three months afterward, and think them worth talking about in +print! But then, as was long ago said, it is the fate of some men +to have greatness thrust upon them.</p> +<p>This main street of the village, by the way, with its hotels and +shops, was no other than my river road itself, in its more +civilized estate, as I now remember with a sense of surprise. In my +mind the two had never any connection. It was in this thoroughfare +that one saw now and then a group of cavaliers strolling about +under broad-brimmed hats, with big spurs at their heels, accosting +passers-by with hearty familiarity, first names and hand-shakes, +while their horses stood hitched to the branches of roadside +trees,—a typical Southern picture. Here, on a Sunday +afternoon, were two young fellows who had brought to town a mother +coon and three young ones, hoping to find a purchaser. The guests +at the hotels manifested no eagerness for such pets, but the +colored bell-boys and waiters gathered about, and after a little +good-humored dickering bought the entire lot, box and all, for a +dollar and a half; first having pulled the little ones out between +the slats —not without some risk to both parties— to +look at them and pass them round. The venders walked off with grins +of ill-concealed triumph. The Fates had been kind to them, and they +had three silver half-dollars in their pockets. I heard one of them +say something about giving part of the money to a third man who had +told them where the nest was; but his companion would listen to no +such folly. "He wouldn't come with us," he said, "and we won't tell +him a damned thing." I fear there was nothing distinctively +Southern about <i>that</i>.</p> +<p>Here, too, in the heart of the town, was a magnificent cluster +of live-oaks, worth coming to Florida to see; far-spreading, full +of ferns and air plants, and heavy with hanging moss. Day after day +I went out to admire them. Under them was a neglected orange grove, +and in one of the orange-trees, amid the glossy foliage, appeared +my first summer tanager. It was a royal setting, and the splendid +vermilion-red bird was worthy of it. Among the oaks I walked in the +evening, listening to the strange low chant of the +chuck-will's-widow, —a name which the owner himself +pronounces with a rest after the first syllable. Once, for two or +three days, the trees were amazingly full of blue yellow-backed +warblers. Numbers of them, a dozen at least, could be heard singing +at once directly over one's head, running up the scale not one +after another, but literally in unison. Here the tufted titmouse, +the very soul of monotony, piped and piped and piped, as if his +diapason stop were pulled out and stuck, and could not be pushed in +again. He is an odd genius. With plenty of notes, he wearies you +almost to distraction, harping on one string for half an hour +together. He is the one Southern bird that I should perhaps be +sorry to see common in Massachusetts; but that "perhaps" is a large +word. Many yellow-throated warblers, silent as yet, were commonly +in the live-oaks, and innumerable myrtle birds, also silent, with +prairie warblers, black-and-white creepers, solitary vireos, an +occasional chickadee, and many more. It was a birdy spot; and just +across the way, on the shrubby island, were red-winged blackbirds, +who piqued my curiosity by adding to the familiar <i>conkaree</i> a +final syllable,—the Florida termination, I called +it,—which made me wonder whether, as has been the case with +so many other Florida birds, they might not turn out to be a +distinct race, worthy of a name (<i>Agelaius phoeniceus +something-or-other</i>), as well as of a local habitation. I +suggest the question to those whose business it is to be learned in +such matters.<a id="footnotetag6" name="footnotetag6"></a><a href= +"#footnote6"><sup>6</sup></a></p> +<p>The tall grass about the borders of the island was alive with +clapper rails. Before I rose in the morning I heard them crying in +full chorus; and now and then during the day something would +happen, and all at once they would break out with one sharp volley, +and then instantly all would be silent again. Theirs is an apt +name,— <i>Rallus crepitans.</i> Once I watched two of them in +the act of crepitating, and ever after that, when the sudden uproar +burst forth, I seemed to see the reeds full of birds, each with his +bill pointing skyward, bearing his part in the salvo. So, far as I +could perceive, they had nothing to fear from human enemies. They +ran about the mud on the edge of the grass, especially in the +morning, looking like half-grown pullets. Their specialty was +crab-fishing, at which they were highly expert, plunging into the +water up to the depth of their legs, and handling and swallowing +pretty large specimens with surprising dexterity. I was greatly +pleased with them, as well as with their local name, "everybody's +chickens."</p> +<p>Once I feared we had heard the last of them. On a day following +a sudden fall of the mercury, a gale from the north set in at noon, +with thunder and lightning, hail, and torrents of rain. The river +was quickly lashed into foam, and the gale drove the ocean into it +through the inlet, till the shrubbery of the rails' island barely +showed above the breakers. The street was deep under water, and +fears were entertained for the new bridge and the road to the +beach. All night the gale continued, and all the next day till late +in the afternoon; and when the river should have been at low tide, +the island was still flooded. Gravitation was overmatched for the +time being. And where were the rails, I asked myself. They could +swim, no doubt, when put to it, but it seemed impossible that they +could survive so fierce an inundation. Well, the wind ceased, the +tide went out at last; and behold, the rails were in full cry, not +a voice missing! How they had managed it was beyond my ken.</p> +<p>Another island, farther out than that of the rails (but the +rails, like the long-billed marsh wrens, appeared to be present in +force all up and down the river, in suitable places), was occupied +nightly as a crow-roost. Judged by the morning clamor, which, like +that of the rails, I heard from my bed, its population must have +been enormous. One evening I happened to come up the street just in +time to see the hinder part of the procession—some hundreds +of birds—flying across the river. They came from the +direction of the pine lands in larger and smaller squads, and with +but a moderate amount of noise moved straight to their destination. +All but one of them so moved, that is to say. The performance of +that one exception was a mystery. He rose high in the air, over the +river, and remained soaring all by himself, acting sometimes as if +he were catching insects, till the flight had passed, even to the +last scattering detachments. What could be the meaning of his +eccentric behavior? Some momentary caprice had taken him, perhaps. +Or was he, as I could not help asking, some duly appointed officer +of the day,—grand marshal, if you please,— with a +commission to see all hands in before retiring himself? He waited, +at any rate, till the final stragglers had passed; then he came +down out of the air and followed them. I meant to watch the +ingathering a second time, to see whether this feature of it would +be repeated, but I was never there at the right moment. One cannot +do everything.</p> +<p>Now, alas, Florida seems very far off. I am never likely to walk +again under those New Smyrna live-oaks, nor to see again all that +beauty of the Hillsborough. And yet, in a truer and better sense of +the word, I do see it, and shall. What a heavenly light falls at +this moment on the river and the island woods! Perhaps we must come +back to Wordsworth, after all,—</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"The light that never was, on sea or land."</p> +</div> +</div> +<a name="mill"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>A MORNING AT THE OLD SUGAR MILL.<a id="footnotetag7" name= +"footnotetag7"></a><a href="#footnote7"><sup>7</sup></a></h2> +<p>On the third or fourth day of my sojourn at the Live Oak Inn, +the lady of the house, noticing my peripatetic habits, I suppose, +asked whether I had been to the old sugar mill. The ruin is +mentioned in the guide-books as one of the historic features of the +ancient settlement of New Smyrna, but I had forgotten the fact, and +was thankful to receive a description of the place, as well as of +the road thither,—a rather blind road, my informant said, +with no houses at which to inquire the way.</p> +<p>Two or three mornings afterward, I set out in the direction +indicated. If the route proved to be half as vague as my good +lady's account of it had sounded, I should probably never find the +mill; but the walk would be pleasant, and that, after all, was the +principal consideration, especially to a man who just then cared +more, or thought he did, for a new bird or a new song than for an +indefinite number of eighteenth-century relics.</p> +<p>For the first half-mile the road follows one of the old Turnbull +canals dug through the coquina stone which underlies the soil +hereabout; then, after crossing the railway, it strikes to the left +through a piece of truly magnificent wood, known as the cotton-shed +hammock, because, during the war, cotton was stored here in +readiness for the blockade runners of Mosquito Inlet. Better than +anything I had yet seen, this wood answered to my idea of a +semi-tropical forest: live-oaks, magnolias, palmettos, sweet gums, +maples, and hickories, with here and there a long-leaved pine +overtopping all the rest. The palmettos, most distinctively +Southern of them all, had been badly used by their hardier +neighbors; they looked stunted, and almost without exception had +been forced out of their normal perpendicular attitude. The +live-oaks, on the other hand, were noble specimens; lofty and +wide-spreading, elm-like in habit, it seemed to me, though not +without the sturdiness which belongs as by right to all oaks, and +seldom or never to the American elm.</p> +<p>What gave its peculiar tropical character to the wood, however, +was not so much the trees as the profusion of plants that covered +them and depended from them: air-plants (<i>Tillandsia</i>), large +and small,—like pineapples, with which they claim a family +relationship, —the exuberant hanging moss, itself another +air-plant, ferns, and vines. The ferns, a species of polypody +("resurrection ferns," I heard them called), completely covered the +upper surface of many of the larger branches, while the huge vines +twisted about the trunks, or, quite as often, dropped straight from +the treetops to the ground.</p> +<p>In the very heart of this dense, dark forest (a forest primeval, +I should have said, but I was assured that the ground had been +under cultivation so recently that, to a practiced eye, the +cotton-rows were still visible) stood a grove of wild orange-trees, +the handsome fruit glowing like lamps amid the deep green foliage. +There was little other brightness. Here and there in the +undergrowth were yellow jessamine vines, but already —March +11—they were past flowering. Almost or quite the only blossom +just now in sight was the faithful round-leaved houstonia, growing +in small flat patches in the sand on the edge of the road, with +budding partridge-berry—a Yankee in Florida—to keep it +company. Warblers and titmice twittered in the leafy treetops, and +butterflies of several kinds, notably one gorgeous creature in +yellow and black, like a larger and more resplendent Turnus, went +fluttering through the underwoods. I could have believed myself in +the heart of a limitless forest; but Florida hammocks, so far as I +have seen, are seldom of great extent, and the road presently +crossed another railway track, and then, in a few rods more, came +out into the sunny pine-woods, as one might emerge from a cathedral +into the open day. Two men were approaching in a wagon (except on +Sunday, I am not certain that I ever met a foot passenger in the +flat-woods), and I improved the opportunity to make sure of my +course. "Go about fifty yards," said one of them, "and turn to the +right; then about fifty yards more, and turn to the left. +<i>That</i> road will take you to the mill." Here was a man who had +traveled in the pine lands,—where, of all places, it is easy +to get lost and hard to find yourself,—and not only +appreciated the value of explicit instructions, but, being a +Southerner, had leisure enough and politeness enough to give them. +I thanked him, and sauntered on. The day was before me, and the +place was lively with birds. Pine-wood sparrows, pine warblers, and +red-winged blackbirds were in song; two red-shouldered hawks were +screaming, a flicker was shouting, a red-bellied woodpecker cried +<i>kur-r-r-r</i>, brown-headed nuthatches were gossiping in the +distance, and suddenly I heard, what I never thought to hear in a +pinery, the croak of a green heron. I turned quickly and saw him. +It was indeed he. What a friend is ignorance, mother of all those +happy surprises which brighten existence as they pass, like the +butterflies of the wood. The heron was at home, and I was the +stranger. For there was water near, as there is everywhere in +Florida; and subsequently, in this very place, I met not only the +green heron, but three of his relatives,—the great blue, the +little blue, and the dainty Louisiana, more poetically known (and +worthy to wear the name) as the "Lady of the Waters."</p> +<p>On this first occasion, however, the green heron was speedily +forgotten; for just then I heard another note, unlike anything I +had ever heard before,—as if a great Northern shrike had been +struck with preternatural hoarseness, and, like so many other +victims of the Northern winter, had betaken himself to a sunnier +clime. I looked up. In the leafy top of a pine sat a boat-tailed +grackle, splendidly iridescent, engaged in a musical performance +which afterward became almost too familiar to me, but which now, as +a novelty, was as interesting as it was grotesque. This, as well as +I can describe it, is what the bird was doing. He opened his +bill,—<i>set</i> it, as it were, wide apart,—and +holding it thus, emitted four or five rather long and very loud +grating, shrikish notes; then instantly shook his wings with an +extraordinary flapping noise, and followed that with several highly +curious and startling cries, the concluding one of which sometimes +suggested the cackle of a robin. All this he repeated again and +again with the utmost fervor. He could not have been more +enthusiastic if he had been making the sweetest music in the world. +And I confess that I thought he had reason to be proud of his work. +The introduction of wing-made sounds in the middle of a vocal +performance was of itself a stroke of something like genius. It put +me in mind of the firing of cannons as an accompaniment to the +Anvil Chorus. Why should a creature of such gifts be named for his +bodily dimensions, or the shape of his tail? Why not <i>Quiscalus +gilmorius</i>, Gilmore's grackle?</p> +<p>That the sounds <i>were</i> wing-made I had no thought of +questioning. I had seen the thing done,—seen it and heard it; +and what shall a man trust, if not his own eyes and ears, +especially when each confirms the other? Two days afterward, +nevertheless, I began to doubt. I heard a grackle "sing" in the +manner just described, wing-beats and all, while flying from one +tree to another; and later still, in a country where boat-tailed +grackles were an every-day sight near the heart of the village, I +more than once saw them produce the sounds in question without any +perceptible movement of the wings, and furthermore, their mandibles +could be seen moving in time with the beats. So hard is it to be +sure of a thing, even when you see it and hear it.</p> +<p>"Oh yes," some sharp-witted reader will say, "you saw the wings +flapping,—beating time,—and so you imagined that the +sounds were like wing-beats." But for once the sharp-witted reader +is in the wrong. The resemblance is not imaginary. Mr. F.M. +Chapman, in A List of Birds Observed at Gainesville, Florida,<a id= +"footnotetag8" name="footnotetag8"></a><a href= +"#footnote8"><sup>8</sup></a> says of the boat-tailed grackle +(<i>Quiscalus major</i>): "A singular note of this species greatly +resembles the flapping of wings, as of a coot tripping over the +water; this sound was very familiar to me, but so excellent is the +imitation that for a long time I attributed it to one of the +numerous coots which abound in most places favored by <i>Q. +major</i>."</p> +<p>If the sounds are not produced by the wings, the question +returns, of course, why the wings are shaken just at the right +instant. To that I must respond with the time-honored formula, "Not +prepared." The reader may believe, if he will, that the bird is +aware of the imitative quality of the notes, and amuses itself by +heightening the delusion of the looker-on. My own more commonplace +conjecture is that the sounds are produced by snappings and +gratings of the big mandibles ("He is gritting his teeth," said a +shrewd unornithological Yankee, whose opinion I had solicited), and +that the wing movements may be nothing but involuntary +accompaniments of this almost convulsive action of the beak. But +perhaps the sounds <i>are</i> wing-made, after all.</p> +<p>On the day of which I am writing, at any rate, I was troubled by +no misgivings. I had seen something new, and was only desirous to +see more of it. Who does not love an original character? For at +least half an hour the old mill was forgotten, while I chased the +grackle about, as he flew hither and thither, sometimes with a +loggerhead shrike in furious pursuit. Once I had gone a few rods +into the palmetto scrub, partly to be nearer the bird, but still +more to enjoy the shadow of a pine, and was standing under the +tree, motionless, when a man came along the road in a gig. +"Surveying?" he asked, reining in his horse. "No, sir; I am looking +at a bird in the tree yonder." I wished him to go on, and thought +it best to gratify his curiosity at once. He was silent a moment; +then he said, "Looking at the old sugar house from there?" That was +too preposterous, and I answered with more voice, and perhaps with +a touch of impatience, "No, no; I am trying to see a bird in that +pine-tree." He was silent again. Then he gathered up the reins. +"I'm so deaf I can't hear you," he said, and drove on. "Good-by," I +remarked, in a needless undertone; "you're a good man, I've no +doubt, but deaf people should n't be inquisitive at long +range."</p> +<p>The advice was sound enough, in itself considered; properly +understood, it might be held to contain, or at least to suggest, +one of the profoundest, and at the same time one of the most +practical, truths of all devout philosophy; but the testiness of +its tone was little to my credit. He <i>was</i> a good +man,—and the village doctor,—and more than once +afterward put me under obligation. One of his best appreciated +favors was unintended and indirect. I was driving with him through +the hammock, and we passed a bit of swamp. "There are some pretty +flowers," he exclaimed; "I think I must get them." At the word he +jumped out of the gig, bade me do the same, hitched his horse, a +half-broken stallion, to a sapling, and plunged into the thicket. I +strolled elsewhere; and by and by he came back, a bunch of common +blue iris in one hand, and his shoes and stockings in the other. +"They are very pretty," he explained (he spoke of the flowers), +"and it is early for them." After that I had no doubt of his +goodness, and in case of need would certainly have called him +rather than his younger rival at the opposite end of the +village.</p> +<p>When I tired of chasing the grackle, or the shrike had driven +him away (I do not remember now how the matter ended), I started +again toward the old sugar mill. Presently a lone cabin came into +sight. The grass-grown road led straight to it, and stopped at the +gate. Two women and a brood of children stood in the door, and in +answer to my inquiry one of the women (the children had already +scampered out of sight) invited me to enter the yard. "Go round the +house," she said, "and you will find a road that runs right down to +the mill."</p> +<p>The mill, as it stands, is not much to look at: some fragments +of wall built of coquina stone, with two or three arched windows +and an arched door, the whole surrounded by a modern plantation of +orange-trees, now almost as much a ruin as the mill itself. But the +mill was built more than a hundred years ago, and serves well +enough the principal use of abandoned and decaying things,—to +touch the imagination. For myself, I am bound to say, it was a +precious two hours that I passed beside it, seated on a crumbling +stone in the shade of a dying orange-tree.</p> +<p>Behind me a redbird was whistling (cardinal grosbeak, I have +been accustomed to call him, but I like the Southern name better, +in spite of its ambiguity), now in eager, rapid tones, now slowly +and with a dying fall. Now his voice fell almost to a whisper, now +it rang out again; but always it was sweet and golden, and always +the bird was out of sight in the shrubbery. The orange-trees were +in bloom; the air was full of their fragrance, full also of the +murmur of bees. All at once a deeper note struck in, and I turned +to look. A humming-bird was hovering amid the white blossoms and +glossy leaves. I saw his flaming throat, and the next instant he +was gone, like a flash of light,—the first hummer of the +year. I was far from home, and expectant of new things. That, I +dare say, was the reason why I took the sound at first for the boom +of a bumble-bee; some strange Floridian bee, with a deeper and more +melodious bass than any Northern insect is master of.</p> +<p>It is good to be here, I say to myself, and we need no +tabernacle. All things are in harmony. A crow in the distance says +<i>caw, caw</i> in a meditative voice, as if he, too, were thinking +of days past; and not even the scream of a hen-hawk, off in the +pine-woods, breaks the spell that is upon us. A quail +whistles,—a true Yankee Bob White, to judge him by his +voice,—and the white-eyed chewink (he is <i>not</i> a Yankee) +whistles and sings by turns. The bluebird's warble and the pine +warbler's trill could never be disturbing to the quietest mood. +Only one voice seems out of tune: the white-eyed vireo, even +to-day, cannot forget his saucy accent. But he soon falls silent. +Perhaps, after all, he feels himself an intruder.</p> +<p>The morning is cloudless and warm, till suddenly, as if a door +had been opened eastward, the sea breeze strikes me. Henceforth the +temperature is perfect as I sit in the shadow. I think neither of +heat nor of cold. I catch a glimpse of a beautiful leaf-green +lizard on the gray trunk of an orange-tree, but it is gone (I +wonder where) almost before I can say I saw it. Presently a brown +one, with light-colored stripes and a bluish tail, is seen +traveling over the crumbling wall, running into crannies and out +again. Now it stops to look at me with its jewel of an eye. And +there, on the rustic arbor, is a third one, matching the unpainted +wood in hue. Its throat is white, but when it is inflated, as +happens every few seconds, it turns to the loveliest rose color. +This inflated membrane should be a vocal sac, I think, but I hear +no sound. Perhaps the chameleon's voice is too fine for dull human +sense.</p> +<p>On two sides of me, beyond the orange-trees, is a thicket of +small oaks and cabbage palmettos,—hammock, I suppose it is +called. In all other directions are the pine-woods, with their +undergrowth of saw palmetto. The cardinal sings from the hammock, +and so does the Carolina wren. The chewinks, the blackbirds (a +grackle just now flies over, and a fish-hawk, also), with the +bluebirds and the pine warblers, are in the pinery. From the same +place comes the song of a Maryland yellow-throat. There, too, the +hen-hawks are screaming.</p> +<p>At my feet are blue violets and white houstonia. Vines, thinly +covered with fresh leaves, straggle over the walls,—Virginia +creeper, poison ivy, grapevine, and at least one other, the name of +which I do not know. A clump of tall blackberry vines is full of +white blossoms, "bramble roses faint and pale," and in one corner +is a tuft of scarlet blooms,—sage, perhaps, or something akin +to it. For the moment I feel no curiosity. But withal the place is +unkempt, as becomes a ruin. "Winter's ragged hand" has been rather +heavy upon it. Withered palmetto leaves and leaf-stalks litter the +ground, and of course, being in Florida, there is no lack of +orange-peel lying about. Ever since I entered the State a new +Scrip-ture text has been running in my head: In the place where the +orange-peel falleth, there shall it lie.</p> +<p>The mill, as I said, is now the centre of an orange grove. There +must be hundreds of trees. All of them are small, but the greater +part are already dead, and the rest are dying. Those nearest the +walls are fullest of leaves, as if the walls somehow gave them +protection. The forest is creeping into the inclosure. Here and +there the graceful palm-like tassel of a young long-leaved pine +rises above the tall winter-killed grass. It is not the worst thing +about the world that it tends to run wild.</p> +<p>Now the quail sings again, this time in two notes, and now the +hummer is again in the orange-tree. And all the while the redbird +whistles in the shrubbery. He feels the beauty of the day. If I +were a bird, I would sing with him. From far away comes the chant +of a pine-wood sparrow. I can just hear it.</p> +<p>This is a place for dreams and quietness. Nothing else seems +worth the having. Let us feel no more the fever of life. Surely +they are the wise who seek Nirvana; who insist not upon themselves, +but wait absorption —reabsorption—into the infinite. +The dead have the better part. I think of the stirring, adventurous +man who built these walls and dug these canals. His life was full +of action, full of journeyings and fightings. Now he is at peace, +and his works do follow him—into the land of forgetfulness. +Blessed are the dead. Blessed, too, are the bees, the birds, the +butterflies, and the lizards. Next to the dead, perhaps, they are +happy. And I also am happy, for I too am under the spell. To me +also the sun and the air are sweet, and I too, for to-day at least, +am careless of the world and all its doings.</p> +<p>So I sat dreaming, when suddenly there was a stir in the grass +at my feet. A snake was coming straight toward me. Only the evening +before a cracker had filled my ears with stories of "rattlers" and +"moccasins." He seemed to have seen them everywhere, and to have +killed them as one kills mosquitoes. I looked a second time at the +moving thing in the grass. It was clothed in innocent black; but, +being a son of Adam, I rose with involuntary politeness to let it +pass. An instant more, and it slipped into the masonry at my side, +and I sat down again. It had been out taking the sun, and had come +back to its hole in the wall. How like the story of my own +day,—of my whole winter vacation! Nay, if we choose to view +it so, how like the story of human life itself!</p> +<p>As I started homeward, leaving the mill and the cabin behind me, +some cattle were feeding in the grassy road. At sight of my +umbrella (there are few places where a sunshade is more welcome +than in a Florida pine-wood) they scampered away into the scrub. +Poor, wild-eyed, hungry-looking things! I thought of Pharaoh's lean +kine. They were like the country itself, I was ready to say. But +perhaps I misjudged both, seeing both, as I did, in the winter +season. With the mercury at 80°, or thereabout, it is hard for +the Northern tourist to remember that he is looking at a winter +landscape. He compares a Florida winter with a New England summer, +and can hardly find words to tell you how barren and +poverty-stricken the country looks.</p> +<p>After this I went more than once to the sugar mill. Morning and +afternoon I visited it, but somehow I could never renew the joy of +my first visit. Moods are not to be had for the asking, nor earned +by a walk. The place was still interesting, the birds were there, +the sunshine was pleasant, and the sea breeze fanned me. The orange +blossoms were still sweet, and the bees still hummed about them; +but it was another day, or I was another man. In memory, none the +less, all my visits blend in one, and the ruined mill in the dying +orchard remains one of the bright spots in that strange Southern +world which, almost from the moment I left it behind me, began to +fade into indistinctness, like the landscape of a dream.</p> +<a name="st. john's"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN'S.</h2> +<p>The city of Sanford is a beautiful and interesting place, I +hope, to those who live in it. To the Florida tourist it is +important as lying at the head of steamboat navigation on the St. +John's River, which here expands into a lake—Lake +Monroe—some five miles in width, with Sanford on one side, +and Enterprise on the other; or, as a waggish traveler once +expressed it, with Enterprise on the north, and Sanford and +enterprise on the south.</p> +<p>Walking naturalists and lovers of things natural have their own +point of view, individual, unconventional, whimsical, if you +please,—very different, at all events, from that of +clearer-witted and more serious-minded men; and the inhabitants of +Sanford will doubtless take it as a compliment, and be amused +rather than annoyed, when I confess that I found their city a +discouragement, a widespread desolation of houses and shops. If +there is a pleasant country road leading out of it in any +direction, I was unlucky enough to miss it. My melancholy condition +was hit off before my eyes in a parable, as it were, by a crowd of +young fellows, black and white, whom I found one afternoon in a +sand-lot just outside the city, engaged in what was intended for a +game of baseball. They were doing their best,—certainly they +made noise enough; but circumstances were against them. When the +ball came to the ground, from no matter what height or with what +impetus, it fell dead in the sand; if it had been made of solid +rubber, it could not have rebounded. "Base-running" was little +better than base-walking. "Sliding" was safe, but, by the same +token, impossible. Worse yet, at every "foul strike" or "wild +throw" the ball was lost, and the barefooted fielders had to pick +their way painfully about in the outlying saw-palmetto scrub till +they found it. I had never seen our "national game" played under +conditions so untoward. None but true patriots would have the heart +to try it, I thought, and I meditated writing to Washington, where +the quadrennial purification of the civil service was just then in +progress,—under a new broom,—to secure, if possible, a +few bits of recognition ("plums" is the technical term, I believe) +for men so deserving. The first baseman certainly, who had oftenest +to wade into the scrub, should have received a consulate, at the +very least. Yet they were a merry crew, those national gamesters. +Their patriotism was of the noblest type,—the unconscious. +They had no thought of being heroes, nor dreamed of bounties or +pensions. They quarreled with the umpire, of course, but not with +Fate; and I hope I profited by their example. My errand in Sanford +was to see something of the river in its narrower and better part; +and having done that, I did not regret what otherwise might have +seemed a profitless week.</p> +<p>First, however, I walked about the city. Here, as already at St. +Augustine, and afterward at Tallahassee, I found the mocking-birds +in free song. They are birds of the town. And the same is true of +the loggerhead shrikes, a pair of which had built a nest in a small +water-oak at the edge of the sidewalk, on a street corner, just +beyond the reach of passers-by. In the roadside trees —all +freshly planted, like the city—were myrtle warblers, prairie +warblers, and blue yellowbacks, the two latter in song. Once, after +a shower, I watched a myrtle bird bathing on a branch among the wet +leaves. The street gutters were running with sulphur water, but he +had waited for rain. I commended his taste, being myself one of +those to whom water and brimstone is a combination as malodorous as +it seems unscriptural. Noisy boat-tailed grackles, or "jackdaws," +were plentiful about the lakeside, monstrously long in the tail, +and almost as large as the fish crows, which were often there with +them. Over the broad lake swept purple martins and white-breasted +swallows, and nearer the shore fed peacefully a few pied-billed +grebes, or dabchicks, birds that I had seen only two or three times +before, and at which I looked more than once before I made out what +they were. They had every appearance of passing a winter of +content. At the tops of three or four stakes, which stood above the +water at wide intervals,—and at long distances from the +shore,—sat commonly as many cormorants, here, as everywhere, +with plenty of idle time upon their hands. On the other side of the +city were orange groves, large, well kept, thrifty looking; the +fruit still on the trees (March 20, or thereabouts), or lying in +heaps underneath, ready for the boxes. One man's house, I remember, +was surrounded by a fence overrun with Cherokee rosebushes, a full +quarter of a mile of white blossoms.</p> +<p>My best botanical stroll was along one of the railroads (Sanford +is a "railway centre," so called), through a dreary sand waste. +Here I picked a goodly number of novelties, including what looked +like a beautiful pink chicory, only the plant itself was much +prettier (<i>Lygodesmia</i>); a very curious sensitive-leaved plant +(<i>Schrankia</i>), densely beset throughout with curved prickles, +and bearing globes of tiny pink-purple flowers; a calopogon, quite +as pretty as our Northern <i>pulchellus</i>; a clematis +(<i>Baldwinii</i>), which looked more like a bluebell than a +clematis till I commenced pulling it to pieces; and a great +profusion of one of the smaller papaws, or custard-apples, a low +shrub, just then full of large, odd-shaped, creamy-white, +heavy-scented blossoms. I was carrying a sprig of it in my hand +when I met a negro. "What is this?" I asked. "I dunno, sir." "Isn't +it papaw?" "No, sir, that ain't papaw;" and then, as if he had just +remembered something, he added, "That's dog banana."</p> +<p>Oftener than anywhere else I resorted to the shore of the +lake,—to the one small part of it, that is to say, which was +at the same time easily reached and comparatively unfrequented. +There—going one day farther than usual—I found myself +in the borderland of a cypress swamp. On one side was the lake, but +between me and it were cypress-trees; and on the other side was the +swamp itself, a dense wood growing in stagnant black water covered +here and there with duckweed or some similar growth: a frightful +place it seemed, the very abode of snakes and everything evil. +Stories of slaves hiding in cypress swamps came into my mind. It +must have been cruel treatment that drove them to it! Buzzards flew +about my head, and looked at me. "He has come here to die," I +imagined them saying among themselves. "No one comes here for +anything else. Wait a little, and we will pick his bones." They +perched near by, and, not to lose time, employed the interval in +drying their wings, for the night had been showery. Once in a while +one of them shifted his perch with an ominous rustle. They were +waiting for me, and were becoming impatient. "He is long about it," +one said to another; and I did not wonder. The place seemed one +from which none who entered it could ever go out; and there was no +going farther in without plunging into that horrible mire. I stood +still, and looked and listened. Some strange noise, "bird or +devil," came from the depths of the wood. A flock of grackles +settled in a tall cypress, and for a time made the place loud. How +still it was after they were gone! I could hardly withdraw my gaze +from the green water full of slimy black roots and branches, any +one of which might suddenly lift its head and open its deadly white +mouth! Once a fish-hawk fell to screaming farther down the lake. I +had seen him the day before, standing on the rim of his huge nest +in the top of a tree, and uttering the same cries. All about me +gigantic cypresses, every one swollen enormously at the base, rose +straight and branchless into the air. Dead trees, one might have +said,—light-colored, apparently with no bark to cover them; +but if I glanced up, I saw that each bore at the top a scanty head +of branches just now putting forth fresh green leaves, while long +funereal streamers of dark Spanish moss hung thickly from every +bough.</p> +<p>I am not sure how long I could have stayed in such a spot, if I +had not been able to look now and then through the branches of the +under-woods out upon the sunny lake. Swallows innumerable were +playing over the water, many of them soaring so high as to be all +but invisible. Wise and happy birds, lovers of sunlight and air. +<i>They</i> would never be found in a cypress swamp. Along the +shore, in a weedy shallow, the peaceful dabchicks were feeding. Far +off on a post toward the middle of the lake stood a cormorant. But +I could not keep my eyes long at once in that direction. The dismal +swamp had me under its spell, and meanwhile the patient buzzards +looked at me. "It is almost time," they said; "the fever will do +its work,"—and I began to believe it. It was too bad to come +away; the stupid town offered no attraction; but it seemed perilous +to remain. Perhaps I <i>could</i> not come away. I would try it and +see. It was amazing that I could; and no sooner was I out in the +sunshine than I wished I had stayed where I was; for having once +left the place, I was never likely to find it again. The way was +plain enough, to be sure, and my feet would no doubt serve me. But +the feet cannot do the mind's part, and it is a sad fact, one of +the saddest in life, that sensations cannot be repeated.</p> +<p>With the fascination of the swamp still upon me, I heard +somewhere in the distance a musical voice, and soon came in sight +of a garden where a middle-aged negro was hoeing, —hoeing and +singing: a wild, minor, endless kind of tune; a hymn, as seemed +likely from a word caught here and there; a true piece of natural +melody, as artless as any bird's. I walked slowly to get more of +it, and the happy-sad singer minded me not, but kept on with his +hoe and his song. Potatoes or corn, whatever his crop may have +been,—I did not notice, or, if I did, I have +forgotten,—it should have prospered under his hand.</p> +<p>Farther along, in the highway,—a sandy track, with wastes +of scrub on either side,— boy of eight or nine, armed with a +double-barreled gun, was lingering about a patch of dwarf oaks and +palmettos. "Have n't got that rabbit yet, eh?" said I. (I had +passed him there on my way out, and he had told me what he was +after.)</p> +<p>"No, sir," he answered.</p> +<p>"I don't believe there's any rabbit there."</p> +<p>"Yes, there is, sir; I saw one a little while ago, but he got +away before I could get pretty near."</p> +<p>"Good!" I thought. "Here is a grammarian. Not one boy in ten in +this country but would have said 'I seen.'" A scholar like this was +worth talking with. "Are there many rabbits here?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Yes, sir, there's a good deal."</p> +<p>And so, by easy mental stages, I was clear of the swamp and back +in the town, —saved from the horrible, and delivered to the +commonplace and the dreary.</p> +<p>My best days in Sanford were two that I spent on the river above +the lake. A youthful boatman, expert alike with the oar and the +gun, served me faithfully and well, impossible as it was for him to +enter fully into the spirit of a man who wanted to look at birds, +but not to kill them. I think he had never before seen a customer +of that breed. First he rowed me up the "creek," under promise to +show me alligators, moccasins, and no lack of birds, including the +especially desired purple gallinule. The snakes were somehow +missing (a loss not irreparable), and so were the purple +gallinules; for them, the boy thought, it was still rather early in +the season, although he had killed one a few days before, and for +proof had brought me a wing. But as we were skirting along the +shore I suddenly called "Hist!" An alligator lay on the bank just +before us. The boy turned his head, and instantly was all +excitement. It was a big fellow, he said,—one of three big +ones that inhabited the creek. He would get him this time. "Are you +sure?" I asked. "Oh yes, I'll blow the top of his head off." He was +loaded for gallinules, and I, being no sportsman, and never having +seen an alligator before, was some shades less confident. But it +was his game, and I left him to his way. He pulled the boat +noiselessly against the bank in the shelter of tall reeds, put down +the oars, with which he could almost have touched the alligator, +and took up his gun. At that moment the creature got wind of us, +and slipped incontinently into the water, not a little to my +relief. One live alligator is worth a dozen dead ones, to my +thinking. He showed his back above the surface of the stream for a +moment shortly afterward, and then disappeared for good.</p> +<p>Ornithologically, the creek was a disappointment. We pushed into +one bay after another, among the dense "bonnets,"— huge +leaves of the common yellow pond lily, —but found nothing +that I had not seen before. Here and there a Florida gallinule put +up its head among the leaves, or took flight as we pressed too +closely upon it; but I saw them to no advantage, and with a single +exception they were dumb. One bird, as it dashed into the rushes, +uttered two or three cries that sounded familiar. The Florida +gallinule is in general pretty silent, I think; but he has a noisy +season; then he is indeed noisy enough. A swamp containing a single +pair might be supposed to be populous with barn-yard fowls, the +fellow keeps up such a clatter: now loud and terror-stricken, "like +a hen whose head is just going to be cut off," as a friend once +expressed it; then soft and full of content, as if the aforesaid +hen had laid an egg ten minutes before, and were still felicitating +herself upon the achievement. It was vexatious that here, in the +very home of Florida gallinules, I should see and hear less of them +than I had more than once done in Massachusetts, where they are +esteemed a pretty choice rarity, and where, in spite of what I +suppose must be called exceptional good luck, my acquaintance with +them had been limited to perhaps half a dozen birds. But in affairs +of this kind a direct chase is seldom the best rewarded. At one +point the boatman pulled up to a thicket of small willows, bidding +me be prepared to see birds in enormous numbers; but we found only +a small company of night herons—evidently breeding +there—and a green heron. The latter my boy shot before I knew +what he was doing. He took my reproof in good part, protesting that +he had had only a glimpse of the bird, and had taken it for a +possible gallinule. In the course of the trip we saw, besides the +species already named, great blue and little blue herons, +pied-billed grebes, coots, cormorants, a flock of small sandpipers +(on the wing), buzzards, vultures, fish-hawks, and innumerable +red-winged blackbirds.</p> +<p>Three days afterward we went up the river. At the upper end of +the lake were many white-billed coots (<i>Fulica americana</i>); so +many that we did our best to count them as they rose, flock after +flock, dragging their feet over the water behind them with a +multitudinous splashing noise. There were a thousand, at least. +They had an air of being not so very shy, but they were nobody's +fools. "See there!" my boy would exclaim, as a hundred or two of +them dashed past the boat; "see how they keep just out of +range!"</p> +<p>We were hardly on the river itself before he fell into a state +of something like frenzy at the sight of an otter swimming before +us, showing its head, and then diving. He made after it in hot +haste, and fired I know not how many times, but all for nothing. He +had killed several before now, he said, but had never been obliged +to chase one in this fashion. Perhaps there was a Jonah in the +ship; for though I sympathized with the boy, I sympathized also, +and still more warmly, with the otter. It acted as if life were +dear to it, and for aught I knew it had as good a right to live as +either the boy or I. No such qualms disturbed me a few minutes +later, when, as the boat was grazing the reeds, I espied just ahead +a snake lying in wait among them. I gave the alarm, and the boy +looked round. "Yes," he said, "a big one, a moccasin,—a +cotton-mouth; but I'll fix him." He pulled a stroke or two nearer, +then lifted his oar and brought it down splash; but the reeds broke +the blow, and the moccasin slipped into the water, apparently +unharmed. That was a case for powder and shot. Florida people have +a poor opinion of a man who meets a venomous snake, no matter +where, without doing his best to kill it. How strong the feeling is +my boatman gave me proof within ten minutes after his failure with +the cotton-mouth. He had pulled out into the middle of the river, +when I noticed a beautiful snake, short and rather stout, lying +coiled on the water. Whether it was an optical illusion I cannot +say, but it seemed to me that the creature lay entirely above the +surface,—as if it had been an inflated skin rather than a +live snake. We passed close by it, but it made no offer to move, +only darting out its tongue as the boat slipped past. I spoke to +the boy, who at once ceased rowing.</p> +<p>"I think I must go back and kill that fellow," he said.</p> +<p>"Why so?" I asked, with surprise, for I had looked upon it +simply as a curiosity.</p> +<p>"Oh, I don't like to see it live. It's the poisonousest snake +there is."</p> +<p>As he spoke he turned the boat: but the snake saved him further +trouble, for just then it uncoiled and swam directly toward us, as +if it meant to come aboard. "Oh, you're coming this way, are you?" +said the boy sarcastically. "Well, come on!" The snake came on, and +when it got well within range he took up his fishing-rod (with +hooks at the end for drawing game out of the reeds and bonnets), +and the next moment the snake lay dead upon the water. He slipped +the end of the pole under it and slung it ashore. "There! how do +you like that?" said he, and he headed the boat upstream again. It +was a "copper-bellied moccasin," he declared, whatever that may be, +and was worse than a rattlesnake.</p> +<p>On the river, as in the creek, we were continually exploring +bays and inlets, each with its promising patch of bonnets. Nearly +every such place contained at least one Florida gallinule; but +where were the "purples," about which we kept talking,—the +"royal purples," concerning whose beauty my boy was so +eloquent?</p> +<p>"They are not common yet," he would say. "By and by they will be +as thick as Floridas are now."</p> +<p>"But don't they stay here all winter?"</p> +<p>"No, sir; not the purples."</p> +<p>"Are you certain about that?"</p> +<p>"Oh yes, sir. I have hunted this river too much. They couldn't +be here in the winter without my knowing it."</p> +<p>I wondered whether he could be right, or partly right, +notwithstanding the book statements to the contrary. I notice that +Mr. Chapman, writing of his experiences with this bird at +Gainesville, says, "None were seen until May 25, when, in a part of +the lake before unvisited,—a mass of floating islands and +'bonnets,'—I found them not uncommon." The boy's assertions +may be worth recording, at any rate.</p> +<p>In one place he fired suddenly, and as he put down the gun he +exclaimed, "There! I'll bet I've shot a bird you never saw before. +It had a bill as long as that," with one finger laid crosswise upon +another. He hauled the prize into the boat, and sure enough, it was +a novelty,—a king rail, new to both of us. We had gone a +little farther, and were passing a prairie, on which were pools of +water where the boy said he had often seen large flocks of white +ibises feeding (there were none there now, alas, though we crept up +with all cautiousness to peep over the bank), when all at once I +descried some sharp-winged, strange-looking bird over our heads. It +showed sidewise at the moment, but an instant later it turned, and +I saw its long forked tail, and almost in the same breath its white +head. A fork-tailed kite! and purple gallinules were for the time +forgotten. It was performing the most graceful evolutions, swooping +half-way to the earth from a great height, and then sweeping upward +again. Another minute, and I saw a second bird, farther away. I +watched the nearer one till it faded from sight, soaring and +swooping by turns,—its long, scissors-shaped tail all the +while fully spread,—but never coming down, as its habit is +said to be, to skim over the surface of the water. There is nothing +more beautiful on wings, I believe: a large hawk, with a swallow's +grace of form, color, and motion. I saw it once more (four birds) +over the St. Mark's River, and counted the sight one of the chief +rewards of my Southern winter.</p> +<p>At noon we rested and ate our luncheon in the shade of three or +four tall palmetto-trees standing by themselves on a broad prairie, +a place brightened by beds of blue iris and stretches of golden +senecio,—homelike as well as pretty, both of them. Then we +set out again. The day was intensely hot (March 24), and my oarsman +was more than half sick with a sudden cold. I begged him to take +things easily, but he soon experienced an almost miraculous renewal +of his forces. In one of the first of our after-dinner bonnet +patches, he seized his gun, fired, and began to shout, "A purple! a +purple!" He drew the bird in, as proud as a prince. "There, sir!" +he said; "did n't I tell you it was handsome? It has every color +there is." And indeed it was handsome, worthy to be called the +"Sultana;" with the most exquisite iridescent bluish-purple +plumage, the legs yellow, or greenish-yellow (a point by which it +may be distinguished from the Florida gallinule, as the bird flies +from you), the bill red tipped with pale green, and the shield (on +the forehead, like a continuation of the upper mandible) light +blue, of a peculiar shade, "just as if it had been painted." From +that moment the boy was a new creature. Again and again he spoke of +his altered feelings. He could pull the boat now anywhere I wanted +to go. He was perfectly fresh, he declared, although I thought he +had already done a pretty good day's work under that scorching sun. +I had not imagined how deeply his heart was set upon showing me the +bird I was after. It made me twice as glad to see it, dead though +it was.</p> +<p>Within an hour, on our way homeward, we came upon another. It +sprang out of the lily pads, and sped toward the tall grass of the +shore. "Look! look! a purple!" the boy cried. "See his yellow +legs!" Instinctively he raised his gun, but I said No. It would be +inexcusable to shoot a second one; and besides, we were at that +moment approaching a bird about which I felt a stronger +curiosity,—a snake-bird, or water-turkey, sitting in a willow +shrub at the further end of the bay. "Pull me as near it as it will +let us come," I said. "I want to see as much of it as possible." At +every rod or two I stopped the boat and put up my glasses, till we +were within perhaps sixty feet of the bird. Then it took wing, but +instead of flying away went sweeping about us. On getting round to +the willows again it made as if it would alight, uttering at the +same time some faint ejaculations, like "ah! ah! ah!" but it kept +on for a second sweep of the circle. Then it perched in its old +place, but faced us a little less directly, so that I could see the +beautiful silver tracery of its wings, like the finest of +embroidery, as I thought. After we had eyed it for some minutes we +suddenly perceived a second bird, ten feet or so from it, in full +sight. Where it came from, or how</p> +<p>[Transcriber's Note: missing page 142]</p> +<p>too, shaped like a narrow wedge, was unconscionably long; and as +the bird showed against the sky, I could think of nothing but an +animated sign of addition. A better man—the Emperor +Constantine, shall we say?—might have seen in it a nobler +symbol.</p> +<p>While we were loitering down the river, later in the afternoon, +an eagle made its appearance far overhead, the first one of the +day. The boy, for some reason, refused to believe that it was an +eagle. Nothing but a sight of its white head and tail through the +glass could convince him. (The perfectly square <i>set</i> of the +wings as the bird sails is a pretty strong mark, at no matter what +distance.) Presently an osprey, not far from us, with a fish in his +claws, set up a violent screaming. "It is because he has caught a +fish," said the boy; "he is calling his mate." "No," said I, "it is +because the eagle is after him. Wait a bit." In fact, the eagle was +already in pursuit, and the hawk, as he always does, had begun +struggling upward with all his might. That is the fish-hawk's way +of appealing to Heaven against his oppressor. He was safe for that +time. Three negroes, shad-fishers, were just beyond us (we had seen +them there in the morning, wading about the river setting their +nets), and at the sight of them and of us, I have no doubt, the +eagle turned away. The boy was not peculiar in his notion about the +osprey's scream. Some one else had told me that the bird always +screamed after catching a fish. But I knew better, having seen him +catch a hundred, more or less, without uttering a sound. The safe +rule, in such cases, is to listen to all you hear, and believe +it—after you have verified it for yourself.</p> +<p>It was while we were discussing this question, I think, that the +boy opened his heart to me about my methods of study. He had looked +through the glass now and then, and of course had been astonished +at its power. "Why," he said finally, "I never had any idea it +could be so much fun just to look at birds in the way you do!" I +liked the turn of his phrase. It seemed to say, "Yes, I begin to +see through it. We are in the same boat. This that you call study +is only another kind of sport." I could have shaken hands with him +but that he had the oars. Who does not love to be flattered by an +ingenuous boy?</p> +<p>All in all, the day had been one to be remembered. In addition +to the birds already named—three of them new to me—we +had seen great blue herons, little blue herons, Louisiana herons, +night herons, cormorants, pied-billed grebes, kingfishers, +red-winged blackbirds, boat-tailed grackles, redpoll and myrtle +warblers, savanna sparrows, tree swallows, purple martins, a few +meadow larks, and the ubiquitous turkey buzzard. The boat-tails +abounded along the river banks, and, with their tameness and their +ridiculous outcries, kept us amused whenever there was nothing else +to absorb our attention. The prairie lands through which the river +meanders proved to be surprisingly dry and passable (the water +being unusually low, the boy said), with many cattle pastured upon +them. Here we found the savanna sparrows; here, too, the meadow +larks were singing.</p> +<p>It was a hard pull across the rough lake against the wind (a +dangerous sheet of water for flat-bottomed rowboats, I was told +afterward), but the boy was equal to it, protesting that he didn't +feel tired a bit, now we had got the "purples;" and if he did not +catch the fever from drinking some quarts of river water (a big +bottle of coffee having proved to be only a drop in the bucket), +against my urgent remonstrances and his own judgment, I am sure he +looks back upon the labor as on the whole well spent. He was going +North in the spring, he told me. May joy be with him wherever he +is!</p> +<p>The next morning I took the steamer down the river to Blue +Spring, a distance of some thirty miles, on my way back to New +Smyrna, to a place where there were accessible woods, a beach, and, +not least, a daily sea breeze. The river in that part of its course +is comfortably narrow,—a great advantage,—winding +through cypress swamps, hammock woods, stretches of prairie, and in +one place a pine barren; an interesting and in many ways beautiful +country, but so unwholesome looking as to lose much of its +attractiveness. Three or four large alligators lay sunning +themselves in the most obliging manner upon the banks, here one and +there one, to the vociferous delight of the passengers, who ran +from one side of the deck to the other, as the captain shouted and +pointed. One, he told us, was thirteen feet long, the largest in +the river. Each appeared to have its own well-worn sunning-spot, +and all, I believe, kept their places, as if the passing of the big +steamer—almost too big for the river at some of the sharper +turns—had come to seem a commonplace event. Herons in the +usual variety were present, with ospreys, an eagle, kingfishers, +ground doves, Carolina doves, blackbirds (red-wings and +boat-tails), tree swallows, purple martins, and a single wild +turkey, the first one I had ever seen. It was near the bank of the +river, on a bushy prairie, fully exposed, and crouched as the +steamer passed. For a Massachusetts ornithologist the mere sight of +such a bird was enough to make a pretty good Thanksgiving Day. Blue +yellow-backed warblers were singing here and there, and I retain a +particular remembrance of one bluebird that warbled to us from the +pine-woods. The captain told me, somewhat to my surprise, that he +had seen two flocks of paroquets during the winter (they had been +very abundant along the river within his time, he said), but for me +there was no such fortune. One bird, soaring in company with a +buzzard at a most extraordinary height straight over the river, +greatly excited my curiosity. The captain declared that it must be +a great blue heron; but he had never seen one thus engaged, nor, so +far as I can learn, has any one else ever done so. Its upper parts +seemed to be mostly white, and I can only surmise that it may have +been a sandhill crane, a bird which is said to have such a +habit.</p> +<p>As I left the boat I had a little experience of the seamy side +of Southern travel; nothing to be angry about, perhaps, but +annoying, nevertheless, on a hot day. I surrendered my check to the +purser of the boat, and the deck hands put my trunk upon the +landing at Blue Spring. But there was no one there to receive it, +and the station was locked. We had missed the noon train, with +which we were advertised to connect, by so many hours that I had +ceased to think about it. Finally, a negro, one of several who were +fishing thereabouts, advised me to go "up to the house," which he +pointed out behind some woods, and see the agent. This I did, and +the agent, in turn, advised me to walk up the track to the +"Junction," and be sure to tell the conductor, when the evening +train arrived, as it probably would do some hours later, that I had +a trunk at the landing. Otherwise the train would not run down to +the river, and my baggage would lie there till Monday. He would go +down presently and put it under cover. Happily, he fulfilled his +promise, for it was already beginning to thunder, and soon it +rained in torrents, with a cold wind that made the hot weather all +at once a thing of the past.</p> +<p>It was a long wait in the dreary little station; or rather it +would have been, had not the tedium of it been relieved by the +presence of a newly married couple, whose honeymoon was just then +at the full. Their delight in each other was exuberant, +effervescent, beatific,—what shall I say?—quite beyond +veiling or restraint. At first I bestowed upon them sidewise and +cornerwise glances only, hiding bashfully behind my spectacles, as +it were, and pretending to see nothing; but I soon perceived that I +was to them of no more consequence than a fly on the wall. If they +saw me, which sometimes seemed doubtful,—for love is +blind,—they evidently thought me too sensible, or too old, to +mind a little billing and cooing. And they were right in their +opinion. What was I in Florida for, if not for the study of natural +history? And truly, I have seldom seen, even among birds, a pair +less sophisticated, less cabined and confined by that disastrous +knowledge of good and evil which is commonly understood to have +resulted from the eating of forbidden fruit, and which among +prudish people goes by the name of modesty. It was refreshing. +Charles Lamb himself would have enjoyed it, and, I should hope, +would have added some qualifying footnotes to a certain unamiable +essay of his concerning the behavior of married people.</p> +<a name="road"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD.</h2> +<p>One of my first inquiries at Tallahassee was for the easiest way +to the woods. The city is built on a hill, with other hills about +it. These are mostly under cultivation, and such woods as lay +within sight seemed to be pretty far off; and with the mercury at +ninety in the shade, long tramps were almost out of the question. +"Take the St. Augustine road," said the man to whom I had spoken; +and he pointed out its beginning nearly opposite the state capitol. +After breakfast I followed his advice, with results so pleasing +that I found myself turning that corner again and again as long as +I remained in Tallahassee.</p> +<p>The road goes abruptly downhill to the railway track, first +between deep red gulches, and then between rows of negro cabins, +each with its garden of rosebushes, now (early April) in full +bloom. The deep sides of the gulches were draped with pendent +lantana branches full of purple flowers, or, more beautiful still, +with a profusion of fragrant white honeysuckle. On the roadside, +between the wheel-track and the gulch, grew brilliant Mexican +poppies, with Venus's looking-glass, yellow oxalis, and beds of +blackberry vines. The woods of which my informant had spoken lay a +little beyond the railway, on the right hand of the road, just as +it began another ascent. I entered them at once, and after a +semicircular turn through the pleasant paths, amid live-oaks, +water-oaks, red oaks, chestnut oaks, magnolias, beeches, hickories, +hornbeams, sweet gums, sweet bays, and long-leaved and short-leaved +pines, came out into the road again a quarter of a mile farther up +the hill. They were the fairest of woods to stroll in, it seemed to +me, with paths enough, and not too many, and good enough, but not +too good; that is to say, they were footpaths, not roads, though +afterwards, on a Sunday afternoon, I met two young fellows riding +through them on bicycles. The wood was delightful, also, after my +two months in eastern Florida, for lying on a slope, and for having +an undergrowth of loose shrubbery instead of a jungle of scrub oak +and saw palmetto. Blue jays and crested flycatchers were doing +their best to outscream one another,—with the odds in favor +of the flycatchers,—and a few smaller birds were singing, +especially two or three summer tanagers, as many yellow-throated +warblers, and a ruby-crowned kinglet. In one part of the wood, near +what I took to be an old city reservoir, I came upon a single +white-throated sparrow and a humming-bird,—the latter a +strangely uncommon sight in Tallahassee, where, of all the places I +have ever seen, it ought to find itself in clover. Here, too, were +a pair of Carolina wrens, just now in search of a building-site, +and conducting themselves exactly in the manner of bluebirds intent +on such business; peeping into every hole that offered itself, and +then, after the briefest interchange of opinion,—unfavorable +on the female's part, if we may guess,—concluding to look a +little farther.</p> +<p>As I struck the road again, a man came along on horseback, and +we fell into conversation about the country. "A lovely country," he +called it, and I agreed with him. He inquired where I was from, and +I mentioned that I had lately been in southern Florida, and found +this region a strong contrast. "Yes," he returned; and, pointing to +the grass, he remarked upon the richness of the soil. "This yere +land would fertilize that," he said, speaking of southern Florida. +"I shouldn't wonder," said I. I meant to be understood as +concurring in his opinion, but such a qualified, Yankeefied assent +seemed to him no assent at all. "Oh, it will, it will!" he +responded, as if the point were one about which I must on no +account be left unconvinced. He told me that the fine house at +which I had looked, a little distance back, through a long vista of +trees, was the residence of Captain H., who owned all the land +along the road for a good distance. I inquired how far the road was +pretty, like this. "For forty miles," he said. That was farther +than I was ready to walk, and coming soon to the top of the hill, +or, more exactly, of the plateau, I stopped in the shade of a +china-tree, and looked at the pleasing prospect. Behind me was a +plantation of young pear-trees, and before me, among the hills +northward, lay broad, cultivated slopes, dotted here and there with +cabins and tall, solitary trees. On the nearer slope, perhaps a +sixteenth of a mile away, a negro was ploughing, with a single ox +harnessed in some primitive manner, —with pieces of wood, for +the most part, as well as I could make out through an opera-glass. +The soil offered the least possible hindrance, and both he and the +ox seemed to be having a literal "walk-over." Beyond him—a +full half-mile away, perhaps—another man was ploughing with a +mule; and in another direction a third was doing likewise, with a +woman following in his wake. A colored boy of seventeen—I +guessed his age at twenty-three—came up the road in a cart, +and I stopped him to inquire about the crops and other matters. The +land in front of me was planted with cotton, he said; and the men +ploughing in the distance were getting ready to plant the same. +They hired the land and the cabins of Captain H., paying him so +much cotton (not so much an acre, but so much a mule, if I +understood him rightly) by way of rent. We talked a long time about +one thing and another. He had been south as far as the Indian River +country, but was glad to be back again in Tallahassee, where he was +born. I asked him about the road, how far it went. "They tell me it +goes smack to St. Augustine," he replied; "I ain't tried it." It +was an unlikely story, it seemed to me, but I was assured afterward +that he was right; that the road actually runs across the country +from Tallahassee to St. Augustine, a distance of about two hundred +miles. With company of my own choosing, and in cooler weather, I +thought I should like to walk its whole length.<a id="footnotetag9" +name="footnotetag9"></a><a href="#footnote9"><sup>9</sup></a> My +young man was in no haste. With the reins (made of rope, after a +fashion much followed in Florida) lying on the forward axle of his +cart, he seemed to have put himself entirely at my service. He had +to the full that peculiar urbanity which I began after a while to +look upon as characteristic of Tallahassee negroes,—a +gentleness of speech, and a kindly, deferential air, neither +forward nor servile, such as sits well on any man, whatever the +color of his skin.</p> +<p>In that respect he was like another boy of about his own age, +who lived in the cabin directly before us, but whom I did not see +till I had been several times over the road. Then he happened to be +at work near the edge of the field, and I beckoned him to me. He, +too, was serious and manly in his bearing, and showed no +disposition to go back to his hoe till I broke off the +interview,—as if it were a point of good manners with him to +await my pleasure. Yes, the plantation was a good one and easily +cultivated, he said, in response to some remark of my own. There +were five in the family, and they all worked. "We are all big +enough to eat," he added, quite simply. He had never been North, +but had lately declined the offer of a gentleman who wished to take +him there,—him and "another fellow." He once went to +Jacksonville, but couldn't stay. "You can get along without your +father pretty well, but it's another thing to do without your +mother." He never meant to leave home again as long as his mother +lived; which was likely to be for some years, I thought, if she +were still able to do her part in the cotton-field. As a general +thing, the colored tenants of the cabins made out pretty well, he +believed, unless something happened to the crops. As for the old +servants of the H. family, they did n't have to work,—they +were provided for; Captain H.'s father "left it so in his +testimonial." I spoke of the purple martins which were flying back +and forth over the field with many cheerful noises, and of the +calabashes that hung from a tall pole in one corner of the cabin +yard, for their accommodation. On my way South, I told him, I had +noticed these dangling long-necked squashes everywhere, and had +wondered what they were for. I had found out since that they were +the colored man's martin-boxes, and was glad to see the people so +fond of the birds. "Yes," he said, "there's no danger of hawks +carrying off the chickens as long as the martins are round."</p> +<p>Twice afterward, as I went up the road, I found him ploughing +between the cotton rows; but he was too far away to be accosted +without shouting, and I did not feel justified in interrupting him +at his work. Back and forth he went through the long furrow after +the patient ox, the hens and chickens following. No doubt they +thought the work was all for their benefit. Farther away, a man and +two women were hoeing. The family deserved to prosper, I said to +myself, as I lay under a big magnolia-tree (just beginning to open +its large white flowers) and idly enjoyed the scene. And it was +just here, by the bye, that I solved an interesting etymological +puzzle, to wit, the origin and precise meaning of the word +"baygall,"—a word which the visitor often hears upon the lips +of Florida people. An old hunter in Smyrna, when I questioned him +about it, told me that it meant a swampy piece of wood, and took +its origin, he had always supposed, from the fact that bay-trees +and gall-bushes commonly grew in such places. A Tallahassee +gentleman agreed with this explanation, and promised to bring home +some gall-berries the next time he came across any, that I might +see what they were; but the berries were never forthcoming, and I +was none the wiser, till, on one of my last trips up the St. +Augustine road, as I stood under the large magnolia just mentioned, +a colored man came along, hat in hand, and a bag of grain balanced +on his head.</p> +<p>"That's a large magnolia," said I.</p> +<p>He assented.</p> +<p>"That's about as large as magnolias ever grow, isn't it?"</p> +<p>"No, sir; down in the gall there's magnolias a heap bigger 'n +that."</p> +<p>"A gall? What's that?"</p> +<p>"A baygall, sir."</p> +<p>"And what's a baygall?"</p> +<p>"A big wood."</p> +<p>"And why do you call it a baygall?"</p> +<p>He was stumped, it was plain to see. No doubt he would have +scratched his head, if that useful organ had been accessible. He +hesitated; but it isn't like an uneducated man to confess +ignorance. "'Cause it's a desert," he said, "a thick +<i>place</i>."</p> +<p>"Yes, yes," I answered, and he resumed his march.</p> +<p>The road was traveled mostly by negroes. On Sunday afternoons it +looked quite like a flower garden, it was so full of bright dresses +coming home from church. "Now'-days folks git religion so easy!" +one young woman said to another, as they passed me. She was a +conservative. I did not join the procession, but on other days I +talked, first and last, with a good many of the people; from the +preacher, who carried a handsome cane and made me a still handsomer +bow, down to a serious little fellow of six or seven years, whom I +found standing at the foot of the hill, beside a bundle of dead +wood. He was carrying it home for the family stove, and had set it +down for a minute's rest. I said something about his burden, and as +I went on he called after me: "What kind of birds are you hunting +for? Ricebirds?" I answered that I was looking for birds of all +sorts. Had he seen any ricebirds lately? Yes, he said; he started a +flock the other day up on<a id="footnotetag10" name= +"footnotetag10"></a><a href="#footnote10"><sup>10</sup></a> the +hill. "How did they look?" said I. "They is red blackbirds," he +returned. This was not the first time I had heard the redwing +called the ricebird. But how did the boy know me for a bird-gazer? +That was a mystery. It came over me all at once that possibly I had +become better known in the community than I had in the least +suspected; and then I remembered my field-glass. That, as I could +not help being aware, was an object of continual attention. Every +day I saw people, old and young, black and white, looking at it +with undisguised curiosity. Often they passed audible comments upon +it among themselves. "How far can you see through the spyglass?" a +bolder spirit would now and then venture to ask; and once, on the +railway track out in the pine lands, a barefooted, happy-faced +urchin made a guess that was really admirable for its ingenuity. +"Looks like you're goin' over inspectin' the wire," he remarked. On +rare occasions, as an act of special grace, I offered such an +inquirer a peep through the magic lenses,—an experiment that +never failed to elicit exclamations of wonder. Things were so near! +And the observer looked comically incredulous, on putting down the +glass, to find how suddenly the landscape had slipped away again. +More than one colored man wanted to know its price, and expressed a +fervent desire to possess one like it; and probably, if I had ever +been assaulted and robbed in all my solitary wanderings through the +flat-woods and other lonesome places, my "spyglass" rather than my +purse—the "lust of the eye" rather than the "pride of +life"—would have been to thank.</p> +<p>Here, however, there could be no thought of such a contingency. +Here were no vagabonds (one inoffensive Yankee specimen excepted), +but hard-working people going into the city or out again, each on +his own lawful business. Scarcely one of them, man or woman, but +greeted me kindly. One, a white man on horseback, invited, and even +urged me, to mount his horse, and let him walk a piece. I must be +fatigued, he was sure,—how could I help it?—and he +would as soon walk as not. Finding me obstinate, he walked his +horse at my side, chatting about the country, the trees, and the +crops. He it was who called my particular attention to the +abundance of blackberry vines. "Are the berries sweet?" I asked. He +smacked his lips. "Sweet as honey, and big as that," measuring off +a liberal portion of his thumb. I spoke of them half an hour later +to a middle-aged colored man. Yes, he said, the blackberries were +plenty enough and sweet enough; but, for his part, he didn't +trouble them a great deal. The vines (and he pointed at them, +fringing the roadside indefinitely) were great places for +rattlesnakes. He liked the berries, but he liked somebody else to +pick them. He was awfully afraid of snakes; they were so dangerous. +"Yes, sir" (this in answer to an inquiry), "there are plenty of +rattlesnakes here clean up to Christmas." I liked him for his frank +avowal of cowardice, and still more for his quiet bearing. He +remembered the days of slavery,—"before the surrender," as +the current Southern phrase is,—and his face beamed when I +spoke of my joy in thinking that his people were free, no matter +what might befall them. He, too, raised cotton on hired land, and +was bringing up his children—there were eight of them, he +said—to habits of industry.</p> +<p>My second stroll toward St. Augustine carried me perhaps three +miles,—say one sixty-sixth of the entire distance,—and +none of my subsequent excursions took me any farther; and having +just now commended a negro for his candor, I am moved to +acknowledge that, between the sand underfoot and the sun overhead, +I found the six miles, which I spent at least four hours in +accomplishing, more fatiguing than twice that distance would have +been over New Hampshire hills. If I were to settle in that country, +I should probably fall into the way of riding more, and walking +less. I remember thinking how comfortable a certain ponderous black +mammy looked, whom I met on one of these same sunny and sandy +tramps. She sat in the very middle of a tipcart, with an old and +truly picturesque man's hat on her head (quite in the fashion, +feminine readers will notice), driving a one-horned ox with a pair +of clothes-line reins. She was traveling slowly, just as I like to +travel; and, as I say, I was impressed by her comfortable +appearance. Why would not an equipage like that be just the thing +for a naturalistic idler?</p> +<p>Not far beyond my halting-place of two days before I came to a +Cherokee rosebush, one of the most beautiful of +plants,—white, fragrant, single roses (<i>real</i> roses) set +in the midst of the handsomest of glossy green leaves. I was +delighted to find it still in flower. A hundred miles farther south +I had seen it finishing its season a full month earlier. I stopped, +of course, to pluck a blossom. At that moment a female redbird flew +out of the bush. Her mate was beside her instantly, and a nameless +something in their manner told me they were trying to keep a +secret. The nest, built mainly of pine needles and other leaves, +was in the middle of the bush, a foot or two from the grass, and +contained two bluish or greenish eggs thickly spattered with dark +brown. I meant to look into it again (the owners seemed to have no +great objection), but somehow missed it every time I passed. From +that point, as far as I went, the road was lined with Cherokee +roses,—not continuously, but with short intermissions; and +from the number of redbirds seen, almost invariably in pairs, I +feel safe in saying that the nest I had found was probably one of +fifteen or twenty scattered along the wayside. How gloriously the +birds sang! It was their day for singing. I was ready to christen +the road anew,—Redbird Road.</p> +<p>But the redbirds, many and conspicuous as they were, had no +monopoly of the road or of the day. House wrens were equally +numerous and equally at home, though they sang more out of sight. +Red-eyed chewinks, still far from their native berry pastures, +hopped into a bush to cry, "Who's he?" at the passing of a +stranger, in whom, for aught I know, they may have half recognized +an old acquaintance. A bunch of quails ran across the road a little +in front of me, and in another place fifteen or twenty red-winged +blackbirds (not a red wing among them) sat gossiping in a treetop. +Elsewhere, even later than this (it was now April 7), I saw flocks, +every bird of which wore shoulder-straps, —like the +traditional militia company, all officers. <i>They</i> did not +gossip, of course (it is the male that sports the red), but they +made a lively noise.</p> +<p>As for the mocking-birds, they were at the front here, as they +were everywhere. During my fortnight in Tallahassee there were +never many consecutive five minutes of daylight in which, if I +stopped to listen, I could not hear at least one mocker. Oftener +two or three were singing at once in as many different directions. +And, speaking of them, I must speak also of their more northern +cousin. From the day I entered Florida I had been saying that the +mocking-bird, save for his occasional mimicry of other birds, sang +so exactly like the thrasher that I did not believe I could tell +one from the other. Now, however, on this St. Augustine road, I +suddenly became aware of a bird singing somewhere in advance, and +as I listened again I said aloud, with full persuasion, "There! +that's a thrasher!" There was a something of difference: a shade of +coarseness in the voice, perhaps; a tendency to force the tone, as +we say of human singers,—a <i>something</i>, at all events, +and the longer I hearkened, the more confident I felt that the bird +was a thrasher. And so it was,—the first one I had heard in +Florida, although I had seen many. Probably the two birds have +peculiarities of voice and method that, with longer familiarity on +the listener's part, would render them easily distinguishable. On +general principles, I must believe that to be true of all birds. +But the experience just described is not to be taken as proving +that <i>I</i> have any such familiarity. Within a week afterward, +while walking along the railway, I came upon a thrasher and a +mocking-bird singing side by side; the mocker upon a telegraph +pole, and the thrasher on the wire, halfway between the mocker and +the next pole. They sang and sang, while I stood between them in +the cut below and listened; and if my life had depended on my +seeing how one song differed from the other, I could not have done +it. With my eyes shut, the birds might have changed +places,—if they could have done it quickly enough,—and +I should have been none the wiser.</p> +<p>As I have said, I followed the road over the nearly level +plateau for what I guessed to be about three miles. Then I found +myself in a bit of hollow that seemed made for a stopping-place, +with a plantation road running off to the right, and a hillside +cornfield of many acres on the left. In the field were a few tall +dead trees. At the tip of one sat a sparrow-hawk, and to the trunk +of another clung a red-bellied woodpecker, who, with characteristic +foolishness, sat beside his hole calling persistently, and then, as +if determined to publish what other birds so carefully conceal, +went inside, thrust out his head, and resumed his clatter. Here, +too, were a pair of bluebirds, noticeable for their rarity, and for +the wonderful color— a shade deeper than is ever seen at the +North, I think—of the male's blue coat. In a small thicket in +the hollow beside the road were noisy white-eyed vireos, a +ruby-crowned kinglet,—a tiny thing that within a month would +be singing in Canada, or beyond,—an unseen wood pewee, and +(also unseen) a hermit thrush, one of perhaps twenty solitary +individuals that I found scattered about the woods in the course of +my journeyings. Not one of them sang a note. Probably they did not +know that there was a Yankee in Florida who—in some moods, at +least—would have given more for a dozen bars of hermit thrush +music than for a day and a night of the mocking-bird's medley. Not +that I mean to disparage the great Southern performer; as a +vocalist he is so far beyond the hermit thrush as to render a +comparison absurd; but what I love is a <i>singer</i>, a voice to +reach the soul. An old Tallahassee negro, near the "white Norman +school,"—so he called it,—hit off the mocking-bird +pretty well. I had called his attention to one singing in an +adjacent dooryard. "Yes," he said, "I love to hear 'em. They's very +amusin', very amusin'." My own feeling can hardly be a prejudice, +conscious or unconscious, in favor of what has grown dear to me +through early and long-continued association. The difference +between the music of birds like the mocker, the thrasher, and the +catbird and that of birds like the hermit, the veery, and the wood +thrush is one of kind, not of degree; and I have heard music of the +mocking-bird's kind (the thrasher's, that is to say) as long as I +have heard music at all. The question is one of taste, it is true; +but it is not a question of familiarity or favoritism. All praise +to the mocker and the thrasher! May their tribe increase! But if we +are to indulge in comparisons, give me the wood thrush, the hermit, +and the veery; with tones that the mocking-bird can never imitate, +and a simplicity which the Fates—the wise Fates, who will +have variety—have put forever beyond his appreciation and his +reach.</p> +<p>Florida as I saw it (let the qualification be noted) is no more +a land of flowers than New England. In some respects, indeed, it is +less so. Flowering shrubs and climbers there are in abundance. I +rode in the cars through miles on miles of flowering dogwood and +pink azalea. Here, on this Tallahassee road, were miles of Cherokee +roses, with plenty of the climbing scarlet honeysuckle (beloved of +humming-birds, although I saw none here), and nearer the city, as +already described, masses of lantana and white honeysuckle. In more +than one place pink double roses (vagrants from cultivated grounds, +no doubt) offered buds and blooms to all who would have them. The +cross-vine (<i>Bignonia</i>), less freehanded, hung its showy bells +out of reach in the treetops. Thorn-bushes of several kinds were in +flower (a puzzling lot), and the treelike blueberry (<i>Vaccinium +arboreum</i>), loaded with its large, flaring white corollas, was a +real spectacle of beauty. Here, likewise, I found one tiny +crab-apple shrub, with a few blossoms, exquisitely tinted with +rose-color, and most exquisitely fragrant. But the New Englander, +when he talks of wild flowers, has in his eye something different +from these. He is not thinking of any bush, no matter how +beautiful, but of trailing arbutus, hepaticas, bloodroot, anemones, +saxifrage, violets, dogtooth violets, spring beauties, "cowslips," +buttercups, corydalis, columbine, Dutchman's breeches, clintonia, +five-finger, and all the rest of that bright and fragrant host +which, ever since he can remember, he has seen covering his native +hills and valleys with the return of May.</p> +<p>It is not meant, of course, that plants like these are wholly +wanting in Florida. I remember an abundance of violets, blue and +white, especially in the flat-woods, where also I often found +pretty butterworts of two or three sorts. The smaller blue ones +took very acceptably the place of hepaticas, and indeed I heard +them called by that name. But, as compared with what one sees in +New England, such "ground flowers," flowers which it seems +perfectly natural to pluck for a nosegay, were very little in +evidence. I heard Northern visitors remark the fact again and +again. On this pretty road out of Tallahassee—itself a city +of flower gardens —I can recall nothing of the kind except +half a dozen strawberry blossoms, and the oxalis and specularia +before mentioned. Probably the round-leaved houstonia grew here, as +it did everywhere, in small scattered patches. If there were +violets as well, I can only say I have forgotten them.</p> +<p>Be it added, however, that at the time I did not miss them. In a +garden of roses one does not begin by sighing for mignonette and +lilies of the valley. Violets or no violets, there was no lack of +beauty. The Southern highway surveyor, if such a personage exists, +is evidently not consumed by that distressing puritanical passion +for "slicking up things" which too often makes of his Northern +brother something scarcely better than a public nuisance. At the +South you will not find a woman cultivating with pain a few exotics +beside the front door, while her husband is mowing and burning the +far more attractive wild garden that nature has planted just +outside the fence. The St. Augustine road, at any rate, after +climbing the hill and getting beyond the wood, runs between natural +hedges,—trees, vines, and shrubs carelessly +intermingled,—not dense enough to conceal the prospect or +shut out the breeze ("straight from the Gulf," as the Tallahassean +is careful to inform you), but sufficient to afford much welcome +protection from the sun. Here it was good to find the sassafras +growing side by side with the persimmon, although when, for old +acquaintance' sake, I put a leaf into my mouth I was half glad to +fancy it a thought less savory than some I had tasted in +Yankeeland. I took a kind of foolish satisfaction, too, in the +obvious fact that certain plants—the sumach and the Virginia +creeper, to mention no others—were less at home here than a +thousand miles farther north. With the wild-cherry trees, I was +obliged to confess, the case was reversed. I had seen larger ones +in Massachusetts, perhaps, but none that looked half so clean and +thrifty. In truth, their appearance was a puzzle, rum-cherry trees +as by all tokens they undoubtedly were, till of a sudden it flashed +upon me that there were no caterpillars' nests in them! Then I +ceased to wonder at their odd look. It spoke well for my botanical +acumen that I had recognized them at all.</p> +<p>Before I had been a week in Tallahassee I found that, without +forethought or plan, I had dropped into the habit (and how pleasant +it is to think that some good habits <i>can</i> be dropped into!) +of making the St. Augustine road my after-dinner sauntering-place. +The morning was for a walk: to Lake Bradford, perhaps, in search of +a mythical ivory-billed woodpecker, or westward on the railway for +a few miles, with a view to rare migratory warblers. But in the +afternoon I did not walk,—I loitered; and though I still +minded the birds and flowers, I for the most part forgot my botany +and ornithology. In the cool of the day, then (the phrase is an +innocent euphemism), I climbed the hill, and after an hour or two +on the plateau strolled back again, facing the sunset through a +vista of moss-covered live-oaks and sweet gums. Those quiet, +incurious hours are among the pleasantest of all my Florida +memories. A cuckoo would be cooing, perhaps; or a quail, with +cheerful ambiguity,— such as belongs to weather predictions +in general,—would be prophesying "more wet" and "no more wet" +in alternate breaths; or two or three night-hawks would be sweeping +back and forth high above the valley; or a marsh hawk would be +quartering over the big oatfield. The martins would be cackling, in +any event, and the kingbirds practicing their aerial mock +somersaults; and the mocking-bird would be singing, and the redbird +whistling. On the western slope, just below the oatfield, the +Northern woman who owned the pretty cottage there (the only one on +the road) was sure to be at work among her flowers. A laughing +colored boy who did chores for her (without injury to his health, I +could warrant) told me that she was a Northerner. But I knew it +already; I needed no witness but her beds of petunias. In the +valley, as I crossed the railroad track, a loggerhead shrike sat, +almost of course, on the telegraph wire in dignified silence; and +just beyond, among the cabins, I had my choice of mocking-birds and +orchard orioles. And so, admiring the roses and the pomegranates, +the lantanas and the honeysuckles, or chatting with some dusky +fellow-pilgrim, I mounted the hill to the city, and likely as not +saw before me a red-headed woodpecker sitting on the roof of the +State House, calling attention to his patriotic self—in his +tri-colored dress—by occasional vigorous tattoos on the +tinned ridgepole. I never saw him there without gladness. The +legislature had begun its session in an economical mood,—as +is more or less the habit of legislatures, I believe,—and was +even considering a proposition to reduce the salary and mileage of +its members. Under such circumstances, it ought not to have been a +matter of surprise, perhaps, that no flag floated from the cupola +of the capitol. The people's money should not be wasted. And +possibly I should never have remarked the omission but for a +certain curiosity, natural, if not inevitable, on the part of a +Northern visitor, as to the real feeling of the South toward the +national government. Day after day I had seen a portly +gentleman—with an air, or with airs, as the spectator might +choose to express it—going in and out of the State House +gate, dressed ostentatiously in a suit of Confederate gray. He had +worn nothing else since the war, I was told. But of course the +State of Florida was not to be judged by the freak of one man, and +he only a member of the "third house." And even when I went into +the governor's office, and saw the original "ordinance of +secession" hanging in a conspicuous place on the wall, as if it +were an heirloom to be proud of, I felt no stirring of sectional +animosity, thorough-bred Massachusetts Yankee and old-fashioned +abolitionist as I am. A brave people can hardly be expected or +desired to forget its history, especially when that history has to +do with sacrifices and heroic deeds. But these things, taken +together, did no doubt prepare me to look upon it as a happy +coincidence when, one morning, I heard the familiar cry of the +red-headed woodpecker, for the first time in Florida, and looked up +to see him flying the national colors from the ridgepole of the +State House. I did not break out with "Three cheers for the red, +white, and blue!" I am naturally undemonstrative; but I said to +myself that <i>Melanerpes erythrocephalus</i> was a very handsome +bird.</p> +<a name="plantation"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>ORNITHOLOGY ON A COTTON PLANTATION.</h2> +<p>On one of my first jaunts into the suburbs of Tallahassee I +noticed not far from the road a bit of swamp,—shallow pools +with muddy borders and flats. It was a likely spot for "waders," +and would be worth a visit. To reach it, indeed, I must cross a +planted field surrounded by a lofty barbed-wire fence and placarded +against trespassers; but there was no one in sight, or no one who +looked at all like a land-owner; and, besides, it could hardly be +accounted a trespass—defined by Blackstone as an +"<i>unwarranted</i> entry on another's soil"—to step +carefully over the cotton rows on so legitimate an errand. +Ordinarily I call myself a simple bird-gazer, an amateur, a field +naturalist, if you will; but on occasions like the present I +assume—with myself, that is—all the rights and titles +of an ornithologist proper, a man of science strictly so called. In +the interest of science, then, I climbed the fence and picked my +way across the field. True enough, about the edges of the water +were two or three solitary sandpipers, and at least half a dozen of +the smaller yellowlegs,—two additions to my Florida +list,—not to speak of a little blue heron and a green heron, +the latter in most uncommonly green plumage. It was well I had +interpreted the placard a little generously. "The letter killeth" +is a pretty good text in emergencies of this kind. So I said to +myself. The herons, meanwhile, had taken French leave, but the +smaller birds were less suspicious; I watched them at my leisure, +and left them still feeding.</p> +<p>Two days later I was there again, but it must be acknowledged +that this time I tarried in the road till a man on horseback had +disappeared round the next turn. It would have been manlier, +without doubt, to pay no attention to him; but something told me +that he was the cotton-planter himself, and, for better or worse, +prudence carried the day with me. Finding nothing new, though the +sandpipers and yellowlegs were still present, with a very handsome +little blue heron and plenty of blackbirds, I took the road again +and went further, and an hour or two afterward, on getting back to +the same place, was overtaken again by the horseman. He pulled up +his horse and bade me good-afternoon. Would I lend him my +opera-glass, which happened to be in my hand at the moment? "I +should like to see how my house looks from here," he said; and he +pointed across the field to a house on the hill some distance +beyond. "Ah," said I, glad to set myself right by a piece of +frankness that under the circumstances could hardly work to my +disadvantage; "then it is your land on which I have been +trespassing." "How so?" he asked, with a smile; and I explained +that I had been across his cotton-field a little while before. +"That is no trespass," he answered (so the reader will perceive +that I had been quite correct in my understanding of the law); and +when I went on to explain my object in visiting his cane-swamp (for +such it was, he said, but an unexpected freshet had ruined the crop +when it was barely out of the ground), he assured me that I was +welcome to visit it as often as I wished. He himself was very fond +of natural history, and often regretted that he had not given time +to it in his youth. As it was, he protected the birds on his +plantation, and the place was full of them. I should find his woods +interesting, he felt sure. Florida was extremely rich in birds; he +believed there were some that had never been classified. "We have +orioles here," he added; and so far, at any rate, he was right; I +had seen perhaps twenty that day (orchard orioles, that is), and +one sat in a tree before us at the moment. His whole manner was +most kindly and hospitable,—as was that of every Tallahassean +with whom I had occasion to speak, —and I told him with +sincere gratitude that I should certainly avail myself of his +courtesy and stroll through his woods.</p> +<p>I approached them, two mornings afterward, from the opposite +side, where, finding no other place of entrance, I climbed a +six-barred, tightly locked gate—feeling all the while like "a +thief and a robber"—in front of a deserted cabin. Then I had +only to cross a grassy field, in which meadow larks were singing, +and I was in the woods. I wandered through them without finding +anything more unusual or interesting than summer tanagers and +yellow-throated warblers, which were in song there, as they were in +every such place, and after a while came out into a pleasant glade, +from which different parts of the plantation could be seen, and +through which ran a plantation road. Here was a wooden +fence,—a most unusual thing, —and I lost no time in +mounting it, to rest and look about me. It is one of the marks of a +true Yankee, I suspect, to like such a perch. My own weakness in +that direction is a frequent subject of mirth with chance fellow +travelers. The attitude is comfortable and conducive to meditation; +and now that I was seated and at my ease, I felt that this was one +of the New England luxuries which, almost without knowing it, I had +missed ever since I left home.</p> +<p>Of my meditations on this particular occasion I remember +nothing; but that is no sign they were valueless; as it is no sign +that yesterday's dinner did me no good because I have forgotten +what it was. In the latter case, indeed, and perhaps in the former +as well, it would seem more reasonable to draw an exactly opposite +inference. But, quibbles apart, one thing I do remember: I sat for +some time on the fence, in the shade of a tree, with an eye upon +the cane-swamp and an ear open for bird-voices. Yes, and it comes +to me at this moment that here I heard the first and only bull-frog +that I heard anywhere in Florida. It was like a voice from home, +and belonged with the fence. Other frogs I had heard in other +places. One chorus brought me out of bed in Daytona—in the +evening—after a succession of February dog-day showers. "What +is that noise outside?" I inquired of the landlady as I hastened +downstairs. "That?" said she, with a look of amusement; "that's +frogs." "It <i>may</i> be," I thought, but I followed the sounds +till they led me in the darkness to the edge of a swamp. No doubt +the creatures were frogs, but of some kind new to me, with voices +more lugubrious and homesick than I should have supposed could +possibly belong to any batrachian. A week or two later, in the New +Smyrna flat-woods, I heard in the distance a sound which I took for +the grunting of pigs. I made a note of it, mentally, as a cheerful +token, indicative of a probable scarcity of rattlesnakes; but by +and by, as I drew nearer, the truth of the matter began to break +upon me. A man was approaching, and when we met I asked him what +was making that noise yonder. "Frogs," he said. At another time, in +the flat-woods of Port Orange (I hope I am not taxing my reader's +credulity too far, or making myself out a man of too imaginative an +ear), I heard the bleating of sheep. Busy with other things, I did +not stop to reflect that it was impossible there should be sheep in +that quarter, and the occurrence had quite passed out of my mind +when, one day, a cracker, talking about frogs, happened to say, +"Yes, and we have one kind that makes a noise exactly like the +bleating of sheep." That, without question, was what I had heard in +the flat-woods. But this frog in the sugar-cane swamp was the same +fellow that on summer evenings, ever and ever so many years ago, in +sonorous bass that could be heard a quarter of a mile away, used to +call from Reuben Loud's pond, "Pull him in! Pull him in!" or +sometimes (the inconsistent amphibian), "Jug o' rum! Jug o' +rum!"</p> +<p>I dismounted from my perch at last, and was sauntering idly +along the path (idleness like this is often the best of +ornithological industry), when suddenly I had a vision! Before me, +in the leafy top of an oak sapling, sat a blue grosbeak. I knew him +on the instant. But I could see only his head and neck, the rest of +his body being hidden by the leaves. It was a moment of feverish +excitement. Here was a new bird, a bird about which I had felt +fifteen years of curiosity; and, more than that, a bird which here +and now was quite unexpected, since it was not included in either +of the two Florida lists that I had brought with me from home. For +perhaps five seconds I had my opera-glass on the blue head and the +thick-set, dark bill, with its lighter-colored under mandible. Then +I heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs, and lifted my eyes. My +friend the owner of the plantation was coming down the road at a +gallop, straight upon me. If I was to see the grosbeak and make +sure of him, it must be done at once. I moved to bring him fully +into view, and he flew into the thick of a pine-tree out of sight. +But the tree was not far off, and if Mr. —— would pass +me with a nod, the case was still far from hopeless. A bright +thought came to me. I ran from the path with a great show of eager +absorption, leveled my glass upon the pine-tree, and stood fixed. +Perhaps Mr. —— would take the hint. Alas! he had too +much courtesy to pass his own guest without speaking. "Still after +the birds?" he said, as he checked his horse. I responded, as I +hope, without any symptom of annoyance. Then, of course, he wished +to know what I was looking at, and I told him that a blue grosbeak +had just flown into that pine-tree, and that I was most +distressingly anxious to see more of him. He looked at the +pine-tree. "I can't see him," he said. No more could I. "It was n't +a blue jay, was it?" he asked. And then we talked of one thing and +another, I have no idea what, till he rode away to another part of +the plantation where a gang of women were at work. By this time the +grosbeak had disappeared utterly. Possibly he had gone to a bit of +wood on the opposite side of the cane-swamp. I scaled a barbed-wire +fence and made in that direction, but to no purpose. The grosbeak +was gone for good. Probably I should never see another. Could the +planter have read my thoughts just then he would perhaps have been +angry with himself, and pretty certainly he would have been angry +with me. That a Yankee should accept his hospitality, and then load +him with curses and call him all manner of names! How should he +know that I was so insane a hobbyist as to care more for the sight +of a new bird than for all the laws and customs of ordinary +politeness? As my feelings cooled, I saw that I was stepping over +hills or rows of some strange-looking plants just out of the +ground. Peanuts, I guessed; but to make sure I called to a colored +woman who was hoeing not far off. "What are these?" "Pinders," she +answered. I knew she meant peanuts,—otherwise "ground-peas" +and "goobers,"—and now that I once more have a dictionary at +my elbow I learn that the word, like "goober," is, or is supposed +to be, of African origin.</p> +<p>I was preparing to surmount the barbed-wire fence again, when +the planter returned and halted for another chat. It was evident +that he took a genuine and amiable interest in my researches. There +were a great many kinds of sparrows in that country, he said, and +also of woodpeckers. He knew the ivory-bill, but, like other +Tallahasseans, he thought I should have to go into Lafayette County +(all Florida people say La<i>fay</i>ette) to find it. "That bird +calling now is a bee-bird," he said, referring to a kingbird; "and +we have a bird that is called the French mocking-bird; he catches +other birds." The last remark was of interest for its bearing upon +a point about which I had felt some curiosity, and, I may say, some +skepticism, as I had seen many loggerhead shrikes, but had observed +no indication that other birds feared them or held any grudge +against them. As he rode off he called my attention to a great blue +heron just then flying over the swamp. "They are very shy," he +said. Then, from further away, he shouted once more to ask if I +heard the mocking-bird singing yonder, pointing with his whip in +the direction of the singer.</p> +<p>For some time longer I hung about the glade, vainly hoping that +the grosbeak would again favor my eyes. Then I crossed more planted +fields,—climbing more barbed-wire fences, and stopping on the +way to enjoy the sweetly quaint music of a little chorus of +white-crowned sparrows,—and skirted once more the muddy shore +of the cane-swamp, where the yellowlegs and sandpipers were still +feeding. That brought me to the road from which I had made my entry +to the place some days before; but, being still unable to forego a +splendid possibility, I recrossed the plantation, tarried again in +the glade, sat again on the wooden fence (if that grosbeak only +<i>would</i> show himself!), and thence went on, picking a few +heads of handsome buffalo clover, the first I had ever seen, and +some sprays of penstemon, till I came again to the six-barred gate +and the Quincy road. At that point, as I now remember, the air was +full of vultures (carrion crows), a hundred or more, soaring over +the fields in some fit of gregariousness. Along the road were +white-crowned and white-throated sparrows (it was the 12th of +April), orchard orioles, thrashers, summer tanagers, myrtle and +paim warblers, cardinal grosbeaks, mocking-birds, kingbirds, +logger-heads, yellow—throated vireos, and sundry others, but +not the blue grosbeak, which would have been worth them all.</p> +<p>Once back at the hotel, I opened my Coues's Key to refresh my +memory as to the exact appearance of that bird. "Feathers around +base of bill black," said the book. I had not noticed that. But no +matter; the bird was a blue grosbeak, for the sufficient reason +that it could not be anything else. A black line between the almost +black beak and the dark-blue head would be inconspicuous at the +best, and quite naturally would escape a glimpse so hasty as mine +had been. And yet, while I reasoned in this way, I foresaw plainly +enough that, as time passed, doubt would get the better of +assurance, as it always does, and I should never be certain that I +had not been the victim of some illusion. At best, the evidence was +worth nothing for others. If only that excellent Mr. +——, for whose kindness I was unfeignedly thankful (and +whose pardon I most sincerely beg if I seem to have been a bit too +free in this rehearsal of the story),—if only Mr. +—— could have left me alone for ten minutes longer!</p> +<p>The worry and the imprecations were wasted, after all, as, +Heaven be thanked, they so often are; for within two or three days +I saw other blue grosbeaks and heard them sing. But that was not on +a cotton plantation, and is part of another story.</p> +<a name="shrine"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>A FLORIDA SHRINE.</h2> +<p>All pilgrims to Tallahassee visit the Murat place. It is one of +the most conveniently accessible of those "points of interest" with +which guide-books so anxiously, and with so much propriety, concern +themselves. What a tourist prays for is something to see. If I had +ever been a tourist in Boston, no doubt I should before now have +surveyed the world from the top of the Bunker Hill monument. In +Tallahassee, at all events, I went to the Murat estate. In fact, I +went more than once; but I remember especially my first visit, +which had a livelier sentimental interest than the others because I +was then under the agreeable delusion that the Prince himself had +lived there. The guide-book told me so, vouchsafing also the +information that after building the house he "interested himself +actively in local affairs, became a naturalized citizen, and served +successively as postmaster, alderman, and mayor"—a model +immigrant, surely, though it is rather the way of immigrants, +perhaps, not to refuse political responsibilities.</p> +<p>Naturally, I remembered these things as I stood in front of "the +big house"—a story-and-a-half cottage—amid the +flowering shrubs. Here lived once the son of the King of Naples; +himself a Prince, and—worthy son of a worthy +sire—alderman and then mayor of the city of Tallahassee. Thus +did an uncompromising democrat pay court to the shades of Royalty, +while a mocking-bird sang from a fringe-bush by the gate, and an +oriole flew madly from tree to tree in pursuit of a fair creature +of the reluctant sex.</p> +<p>The inconsistency, if such it was, was quickly punished. For, +alas! when I spoke of my morning's pilgrimage to an old resident of +the town, he told me that Murat never lived in the house, nor +anywhere else in Tallahassee, and of course was never its +postmaster, alderman, or mayor. The Princess, he said, built the +house after her husband's death, and lived there, a widow. I +appealed to the guide-book. My informant +sneered,—politely,—and brought me a still older +Tallahassean, Judge ——, whose venerable name I am sorry +to have forgotten, and that indisputable citizen confirmed all that +his neighbor had said. For once, the guide-book compiler must have +been misinformed.</p> +<p>The question, happily, was one of no great consequence. If the +Prince had never lived in the house, the Princess had; and she, by +all accounts (and I make certain her husband would have said the +same), was the worthier person of the two. And even if neither of +them had lived there, if my sentiment had been <i>all</i> wasted +(but there was no question of tears), the place itself was sightly, +the house was old, and the way thither a pleasant one—first +down the hill in a zigzag course to the vicinity of the railway +station, then by a winding country road through the valley past a +few negro cabins, and up the slope on the farther side. Prince +Murat, or no Prince Murat, I should love to travel that road +to-day, instead of sitting before a Massachusetts fire, with the +ground deep under snow, and the air full of thirty or forty degrees +of frost.</p> +<p>In the front yard of one of the cabins opposite the car-wheel +foundry, and near the station, as I now remember, a middle-aged +negress was cutting up an oak log. She swung the axe with vigor and +precision, and the chips flew; but I could not help saying, "You +ought to make the man do that."</p> +<p>She answered on the instant. "I would," she said, "if I had a +man to <i>make</i>."</p> +<p>"I'm sure you would," I thought. Her tongue was as sharp as her +axe.</p> +<p>Ought I to have ventured a word in her behalf, I wonder, when a +man of her own color, and a pretty near neighbor, told me with +admirable <i>naïveté</i> the story of his bereavement +and his hopes? His wife had died a year before, he said, and so +far, though he had not let the grass grow under his feet, he had +found no one to take her place. He still meant to do so, if he +could. He was only seventy-four years old, and it was not good for +a man to be alone. He seemed a gentle spirit, and I withheld all +mention of the stalwart and manless wood-cutter. I hope he went +farther, and fared better. So youthful as he was, surely there was +no occasion for haste.</p> +<p>When I had skirted a cotton-field—the crop just out of the +ground—and a bit of wood on the right, and a swamp with a +splendid display of white water-lilies on the left, and had begun +to ascend the gentle slope, I met a man of considerably more than +seventy-four years.</p> +<p>"Can you tell me just where the Murat place is?" I inquired.</p> +<p>He grinned broadly, and thought he could. He was one of the old +Murat servants, as his father had been before him. "I was borned on +to him," he said, speaking of the Prince. Murat was "a gentleman, +sah." That was a statement which it seemed impossible for him to +repeat often enough. He spoke from a slave's point of view. Murat +was a good master. The old man had heard him say that he kept +servants "for the like of the thing." He didn't abuse them. He +"never was for barbarizing a poor colored person at all." Whipping? +Oh, yes. "He didn't miss your fault. No, sah, he did n't miss your +fault." But his servants never were "ironed." He "didn't believe in +barbarousment."</p> +<p>The old man was thankful to be free; but to his mind +emancipation had not made everything heavenly. The younger set of +negroes ("my people" was his word) were on the wrong road. They had +"sold their birthright," though exactly what he meant by that +remark I did not gather. "They ain't got no sense," he declared, +"and what sense they has got don't do 'em no good."</p> +<p>I told him finally that I was from the North. "Oh, I knows it," +he exclaimed, "I knows it;" and he beamed with delight. How did he +know, I inquired. "Oh, I knows it. I can see it <i>in</i> you. +Anybody would know it that had any jedgment at all. You's a perfect +gentleman, sah." He was too old to be quarreled with, and I +swallowed the compliment.</p> +<p>I tore myself away, or he might have run on till +night—about his old master and mistress, the division of the +estate, an abusive overseer ("he was a perfect dog, sah!"), and +sundry other things. He had lived a long time, and had nothing to +do now but to recall the past and tell it over. So it will be with +us, if we live so long. May we find once in a while a patient +listener.</p> +<p>This patriarch's unfavorable opinion as to the prospects of the +colored people was shared by my hopeful young widower before +mentioned, who expressed himself quite as emphatically. He was +brought up among white people ("I's been taughted a heap," he +said), and believed that the salvation of the blacks lay in their +recognition of white supremacy. But he was less perspicacious than +the older man. He was one of the very few persons whom I met at the +South who did not recognize me at sight as a Yankee. "Are you a +legislator-man?" he asked, at the end of our talk. The legislature +was in session on the hill. But perhaps, after all, he only meant +to flatter me.</p> +<p>If I am long on the way, it is because, as I love always to have +it, the going and coming were the better part of the pilgrimage. +The estate itself is beautifully situated, with far-away horizons; +but it has fallen into great neglect, while the house, almost in +ruins, and occupied by colored people, is to Northern eyes hardly +more than a larger cabin. It put me in mind of the question of a +Western gentleman whom I met at St. Augustine. He had come to +Florida against his will, the weather and the doctor having +combined against him, and was looking at everything through very +blue spectacles. "Have you seen any of those fine old country +mansions," he asked, "about which we read so often in descriptions +of Southern, life?" He had been on the lookout for them, he +averred, ever since he left home, and had yet to find the first +one; and from his tone it was evident that he thought the Southern +idea of a "fine old mansion" must be different from his.</p> +<p>The Murat house, certainly, was never a palace, except as love +may have made it so. But it was old; people had lived in it, and +died in it; those who once owned it, whose name and memory still +clung to it, were now in narrower houses; and it was easy for the +visitor—for one visitor, at least—to fall into pensive +meditation. I strolled about the grounds; stood between the last +year's cotton-rows, while a Carolina wren poured out his soul from +an oleander bush near by; admired the confidence of a pair of +shrikes, who had made a nest in a honeysuckle vine in the front +yard; listened to the sweet music of mocking-birds, cardinals, and +orchard orioles; watched the martins circling above the trees; +thought of the Princess, and smiled at the black children who +thrust their heads out of the windows of her "big house;" and then, +with a sprig of honeysuckle for a keepsake, I started slowly +homeward.</p> +<p>The sun by this time was straight overhead, but my umbrella +saved me from absolute discomfort, while birds furnished here and +there an agreeable diversion. I recall in particular some +white-crowned sparrows, the first ones I had seen in Florida. At a +bend in the road opposite the water-lily swamp, while I was cooling +myself in the shade of a friendly pine-tree,—enjoying at the +same time a fence overrun with Cherokee roses,—a man and his +little boy came along in a wagon. The man seemed really +disappointed when I told him that I was going into town, instead of +coming from it. It was pretty warm weather for walking, and he had +meant to offer me a lift. He was a Scandinavian, who had been for +some years in Florida. He owned a good farm not far from the Murat +estate, which latter he had been urged to buy; but he thought a man +was n't any better off for owning too much land. He talked of his +crops, his children, the climate, and so on, all in a cheerful +strain, pleasant to hear. If the pessimists are right,—which +may I be kept from believing,—the optimists are certainly +more comfortable to live with, though it be only for ten minutes +under a roadside shade-tree.</p> +<p>When I reached the street-car track at the foot of the hill, the +one car which plies back and forth through the city was in its +place, with the driver beside it, but no mules.</p> +<p>"Are you going to start directly?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Yes, sah," he answered; and then, looking toward the stable, he +shouted in a peremptory voice, "Do about, there! Do about!"</p> +<p>"What does that mean?" said I. "Hurry up?"</p> +<p>"Yes, sah, that's it. 'Tain't everybody that wants to be hurried +up; so we tells 'em, 'Do about!'"</p> +<p>Half a minute afterwards two very neatly dressed little colored +boys stepped upon the rear platform.</p> +<p>"Where you goin'?" said the driver. "Uptown?"</p> +<p>They said they were.</p> +<p>"Well, come inside. Stay out there, and you'll git hurt and cost +this dried-up company more money than you's wuth."</p> +<p>They dropped into seats by the rear door. He motioned them to +the front corner. "Sit down there," he said, "right there." They +obeyed, and as he turned away he added, what I found more and more +to be true, as I saw more of him, "I ain't de boss, but I's got +right smart to say."</p> +<p>Then, he whistled to the mules, flourished his whip, and to a +persistent accompaniment of whacks and whistles we went crawling up +the hill.</p> +<a name="tallahassee"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE.</h2> +<p>I arrived at Tallahassee, from Jacksonville, late in the +afternoon, after a hot and dusty ride of more than eight hours. The +distance is only a hundred and sixty odd miles, I believe; but with +some bright exceptions, Southern railroads, like Southern men, seem +to be under the climate, and schedule time is more or less a +formality.</p> +<p>For the first two thirds of the way the country is flat and +barren. Happily, I sat within earshot of an amateur political +economist, who, like myself, was journeying to the State capital. +By birth and education he was a New York State man, I heard him +say; an old abolitionist, who had voted for Birney, Fremont, and +all their successors down to Hayes—the only vote he was ever +ashamed of. Now he was a "greenbacker." The country was going to +the dogs, and all because the government did not furnish money +enough. The people would find it out some time, he guessed. He +talked as a bird sings—for his own pleasure. But I was +pleased, too. His was an amiable enthusiasm, quite exempt, as it +seemed, from all that bitterness, which an exclusive possession of +the truth so commonly engenders. He was greatly in earnest; he knew +he was right; but he could still see the comical side of things; he +still had a sense of the ludicrous; and in that lay his salvation. +For a sense of the ludicrous is the best of mental antiseptics; it, +if anything, will keep our perishable human nature sweet, and save +it from the madhouse. His discourse was punctuated throughout with +quiet laughter. Thus, when he said, "<i>I</i> call it the +<i>late</i> Republican party," it was with a chuckle so +good-natured, so free from acidity and self-conceit, that only a +pretty stiff partisan could have taken offense. Even his +predictions of impending national ruin were delivered with +numberless merry quips and twinkles. Many good Republicans and good +Democrats (the adjective is used in its political sense) might have +envied him his sunny temper, joined, as it was, to a good stock of +native shrewdness. For something in his eye made it plain that, +with all his other qualities, our merry greenbacker was a +reasonably competent hand at a bargain; so that I was not in the +least surprised when his seat-mate told me afterward, in a tone of +much respect, that the "Colonel" owned a very comfortable property +at St. Augustine. But his best possession, I still thought, was his +humor and his own generous appreciation of it. To enjoy one's own +jokes is to have a pretty safe insurance against inward +adversity.</p> +<p>Happily, I say, this good-humored talker sat within hearing. +Happily, too, it was now—April 4—the height of the +season for flowering dogwood, pink azalea, fringe-bushes, Cherokee +roses, and water lilies. All these had blossomed abundantly, and +mile after mile the wilderness and the solitary place were glad for +them. Here and there, also, I caught flying glimpses of some +unknown plant bearing a long upright raceme of creamy-white +flowers. It might be a white lupine, I thought, till at one of our +stops between stations it happened to be growing within reach. Then +I guessed it to be a <i>Baptisia</i>, which guess was afterward +confirmed—to my regret; for the flowers lost at once all +their attractiveness. So ineffaceable (oftenest for good, but this +time for ill) is an early impression upon the least honorably +esteemed of the five senses! As a boy, it was one of my tasks to +keep down with a scythe the weeds and bushes in a rocky, +thin-soiled cattle pasture. In that task,—which, at the best, +was a little too much like work—my most troublesome enemy was +the common wild indigo (<i>Baptisia tinctoria</i>), partly from the +wicked pertinacity with which it sprang up again after every +mowing, but especially from the fact that the cut or bruised stalk +exhaled what in my nostrils was a most abominable odor. Other +people do not find it so offensive, I suspect, but to me it was, +and is, ten times worse than the more pungent but comparatively +salubrious perfume which a certain handsome little black-and-white +quadruped —handsome, but impolite—is given to +scattering upon the nocturnal breeze in moments of extreme +perturbation.</p> +<p>Somewhere beyond the Suwanee River (at which I looked as long as +it remained in sight—and thought of Christine Nilsson) there +came a sudden change in the aspect of the country, coincident with +a change in the nature of the soil, from white sand to red clay; a +change indescribably exhilarating to a New Englander who had been +living, if only for two months, in a country without hills. How +good it was to see the land rising, though never so gently, as it +stretched away toward the horizon! My spirits rose with it. By and +by we passed extensive hillside plantations, on which little groups +of negroes, men and women, were at work. I seemed to see the old +South of which I had read and dreamed, a South not in the least +like anything to be found in the wilds of southern and eastern +Florida; a land of cotton, and, better still, a land of Southern +people, instead of Northern tourists and settlers. And when we +stopped at a thrifty-looking village, with neat, homelike houses, +open grounds, and lordly shade-trees, I found myself saying under +my breath, "Now, then, we are getting back into God's country."</p> +<p>As for Tallahassee itself, it was exactly what I had hoped to +find it: a typical Southern town; not a camp in the woods, nor an +old city metamorphosed into a fashionable winter resort; a place +untainted by "Northern enterprise," whose inhabitants were +unmistakably at home, and whose houses, many of them, at least, had +no appearance of being for sale. It is compactly built on a +hill,— the state capitol crowning the top,—down the +pretty steep sides of which run roads into the open country all +about. The roads, too, are not so sandy but that it is +comparatively comfortable to walk in them—a blessing which +the pedestrian sorely misses in the towns of lower Florida: at St. +Augustine, for example, where, as soon as one leaves the streets of +the city itself, walking and carriage-riding alike become +burdensome and, for any considerable distance, all but impossible. +Here at Tallahassee, it was plain, I should not be kept indoors for +want of invitations from without.</p> +<p>I arrived, as I have said, rather late in the afternoon; so late +that I did nothing more than ramble a little about the city, noting +by the way the advent of the chimney swifts, which I had not found +elsewhere, and returning to my lodgings with a handful of +"banana-shrub" blossoms,—smelling wonderfully like their +name,—which a good woman had insisted upon giving me when I +stopped beside the fence to ask her the name of the bush. It was my +first, but by no means my last, experience of the floral generosity +of Tallahassee people.</p> +<p>The next morning I woke betimes, and to my astonishment found +the city enveloped in a dense fog. The hotel clerk, an old +resident, to whom I went in my perplexity, was as much surprised as +his questioner. He did not know what it could mean, he was sure; it +was very unusual; but he thought it did not indicate foul weather. +For a man so slightly acquainted with such phenomena, he proved to +be a remarkably good prophet; for though, during my fortnight's +stay, there must have been at least eight foggy mornings, every day +was sunny, and not a drop of rain fell.</p> +<p>That first bright forenoon is still a bright memory. For one +thing, the mocking-birds outsang themselves till I felt, and wrote, +that I had never heard mocking-birds before. That they really did +surpass their brethren of St. Augustine and Sanford would perhaps +be too much to assert, but so it seemed; and I was pleased, some +months afterward, to come upon a confirmatory judgment by Mr. +Maurice Thompson, who, if any one, must be competent to speak.</p> +<p>"If I were going to risk the reputation of our country on the +singing of a mocking-bird against a European nightingale," says Mr. +Thompson,<a id="footnotetag11" name="footnotetag11"></a><a href= +"#footnote11"><sup>11</sup></a> "I should choose my champion from +the hill-country in the neighborhood of Tallahassee, or from the +environs of Mobile.... I have found no birds elsewhere to compare +with those in that belt of country about thirty miles wide, +stretching from Live Oak in Florida, by way of Tallahassee, to some +miles west of Mobile."</p> +<p>I had gone down the hill past some negro cabins, into a small, +straggling wood, and through the wood to a gate which let me into a +plantation lane. It was the fairest of summer forenoons (to me, I +mean; by the almanac it was only the 5th of April), and one of the +fairest of quiet landscapes: broad fields rising gently to the +horizon, and before me, winding upward, a grassy lane open on one +side, and bordered on the other by a deep red gulch and a zigzag +fence, along which grew vines, shrubs, and tall trees. The tender +and varied tints of the new leaves, the lively green of the young +grain, the dark ploughed fields, the red earth of the +wayside—I can see them yet, with all that Florida sunshine on +them. In the bushes by the fence-row were a pair of cardinal +grosbeaks, the male whistling divinely, quite unabashed by the +volubility of a mocking-bird who balanced himself on the treetop +overhead,</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"Superb and sole, upon a pluméd spray,"</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>and seemed determined to show a Yankee stranger what +mocking-birds could really do when they set out. He did his work +well; the love notes of the flicker could not have been improved by +the flicker himself; but, right or wrong, I could not help feeling +that the cardinal struck a truer and deeper note; while both +together did not hinder me from hearing the faint songs of +grasshopper sparrows rising from the ground on either side of the +lane. It was a fine contrast: the mocker flooding the air from the +topmost bough, and the sparrows whispering their few almost +inaudible notes out of the grass. Yes, and at the self-same moment +the eye also had its contrast; for a marsh hawk was skimming over +the field, while up in the sky soared a pair of hen-hawks.</p> +<p>In the wood, composed of large trees, both hard wood and pine, I +had found a group of three summer tanagers, two males and one +female,—the usual proportion with birds generally, one may +almost say, in the pairing season. The female was the first of her +sex that I had seen, and I remarked with pleasure the comparative +brightness of her dress. Among tanagers, as among negroes, red and +yellow are esteemed a pretty good match. At this point, too, in a +cluster of pines, I caught a new song—faint and listless, +like the indigo-bird's, I thought; and at the word I started +forward eagerly. Here, doubtless, was the indigo-bird's southern +congener, the nonpareil, or painted bunting, a beauty which I had +begun to fear I was to miss. I had recognized my first tanager from +afar, ten days before, his voice and theme were so like his +Northern relative's; but this time I was too hasty. My listless +singer was not the nonpareil, nor even a finch of any kind, but a +yellow-throated warbler. For a month I had seen birds of his +species almost daily, but always in hard wood trees, and silent. +Henceforth, as long as I remained in Florida, they were invariably +in pines,—their summer quarters,—and in free song. +Their plumage is of the neatest and most exquisite; few, even among +warblers, surpass them in that regard: black and white (reminding +one of the black-and-white creeper, which they resemble also in +their feeding habits), with a splendid yellow gorget. Myrtle +warblers (yellow-rumps) were still here (the peninsula is alive +with them in the winter), and a ruby-crowned kinglet mingled its +lovely voice with the simple trills of pine warblers, while out of +a dense low treetop some invisible singer was pouring a stream of +fine-spun melody. It should have been a house wren, I thought +(another was singing close by), only its tune was several times too +long.</p> +<p>At least four of my longer excursions into the surrounding +country (long, not intrinsically, but by reason of the heat) were +made with a view to possible ivory-billed woodpeckers. Just out of +the town northward, beyond what appeared to be the court end of +Marion Street, the principal business street of the city, I had +accosted a gentleman in a dooryard in front of a long, low, +vine-covered, romantic-looking house. He was evidently at home, and +not so busy as to make an interruption probably intrusive. I +inquired the name of a tree, I believe. At all events, I engaged +him in conversation, and found him most agreeable—an Ohio +gentleman, a man of science, who had been in the South long enough +to have acquired large measures of Southern <i>insouciance</i> +(there are times when a French word has a politer sound than any +English equivalent), which takes life as made for something better +than worry and pleasanter than hard work. He had seen ivory-bills, +he said, and thought I might be equally fortunate if I would visit +a certain swamp, about which he would tell me, or, better still, if +I would go out to Lake Bradford.</p> +<p>First, because it was nearer, I went to the swamp, taking an +early breakfast and setting forth in a fog that was almost a mist, +to make as much of the distance as possible before the sun came +out. My course lay westward, some four miles, along the railway +track, which, thanks to somebody, is provided with a comfortable +footpath of hard clay covering the sleepers midway between the +rails. If all railroads were thus furnished they might be +recommended as among the best of routes for walking naturalists, +since they go straight through the wild country. This one carried +me by turns through woodland and cultivated field, upland and +swamp, pine land and hammock; and, happily, my expectations of the +ivory-bill were not lively enough to quicken my steps or render me +heedless of things along the way.</p> +<p>Here I was equally surprised and delighted by the sight of +yellow jessamine still in flower more than a month after I had seen +the end of its brief season, only a hundred miles further south. So +great, apparently, is the difference between the peninsula and this +Tallahassee hill-country, which by its physical geography seems +rather to be a part of Georgia than of Florida. Here, too, the pink +azalea was at its prettiest, and the flowering dogwood, also, true +queen of the woods in Florida as in Massachusetts. The fringe-bush, +likewise, stood here and there in solitary state, and thorn-bushes +flourished in bewildering variety.</p> +<p>Nearer the track were the omnipresent blackberry vines, some +patches of which are especially remembered for their bright rosy +flowers.</p> +<p>Out of the dense vegetation of a swamp came the cries of Florida +gallinules, and then, of a sudden, I caught, or seemed to catch, +the sweet <i>kurwee</i> whistle of a Carolina rail. Instinctively I +turned my ear for its repetition, and by so doing admitted to +myself that I was not certain of what I had heard, although the +sora's call is familiar, and the bird was reasonably near. I had +been taken unawares, and every ornithologist knows how hard it is +to be sure of one's self in such a case. He knows, too, how +uncertain he feels of any brother observer who in a similar case +seems troubled by no distrust of his own senses. The whistle, +whatever it had been, was not repeated, and I lost my only +opportunity of adding the sora's name to my Florida +catalogue—a loss, fortunately, of no consequence to any but +myself, since the bird is well known as a winter visitor to the +State.</p> +<p>Further along, a great blue heron was stalking about the edge of +a marshy pool, and further still, in a woody swamp, stood three +little blue herons, one of them in white plumage. In the drier and +more open parts of the way cardinals, mocking-birds, and thrashers +were singing, ground doves were cooing, quails were prophesying, +and loggerhead shrikes sat, trim and silent, on the telegraph wire. +In the pine lands were plenty of brown-headed nuthatches, full, as +always, of friendly gossip; two red-shouldered hawks, for whom life +seemed to wear a more serious aspect; three Maryland yellow +throats; a pair of bluebirds, rare enough now to be twice welcome; +a black-and-white creeper, and a yellow redpoll warbler. In the +same pine woods, too, there was much good music: house wrens, +Carolina wrens, red-eyed and white-eyed vireos, pine warblers, +yellow-throated warblers, blue yellowbacks, red-eyed chewinks, and, +twice welcome, like the bluebirds, a Carolina chickadee.</p> +<p>A little beyond this point, in a cut through a low sand bank, I +found two pairs of rough-winged swallows, and stopped for some time +to stare at them, being myself, meanwhile, a gazing-stock for two +or three negroes lounging about the door of a cabin not far away. +It is a happy chance when a man's time is <i>doubly</i> improved. +Two of the birds —the first ones I had ever seen, to be sure +of them—perched directly before me on the wire, one facing +me, the other with his back turned. It was kindly done; and then, +as if still further to gratify my curiosity, they visited a hole in +the bank. A second hole was doubtless the property of the other +pair. Living alternately in heaven and in a hole in the ground, +they wore the livery of the earth.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"They are not fair to outward view</p> +<p>As many swallows be,"</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>I said to myself. But I was not the less glad to see them.</p> +<p>I should have been gladder for a sight of the big woodpecker, +whose reputed dwelling-place lay not far ahead. But, though I +waited and listened, and went through the swamp, and beyond it, I +heard no strange shout, nor saw any strange bird; and toward noon, +just as the sun brushed away the fog, I left the railway track for +a carriage by-way which, I felt sure, must somehow bring me back to +the city. And so it did, past here and there a house, till I came +to the main road, and then to the Murat estate, and was again on +familiar ground.</p> +<p>Two mornings afterward I made another early and foggy start, +this time for Lake Bradford. My instructions were to follow the +railway for a mile or so beyond the station, and then take a road +bearing away sharply to the left. This I did, making sure I was on +the right road by inquiring of the first man I saw—a negro at +work before his cabin. I had gone perhaps half a mile further when +a white man, on his way after a load of wood, as I judged, drove up +behind me. "Won't you ride?" he asked. "You are going to Lake +Bradford, I believe, and I am going a piece in the same direction." +I jumped up behind (the wagon consisting of two long planks +fastened to the two axles), thankful, but not without a little +bewilderment. The good-hearted negro, it appeared, had asked the +man to look out for me; and he, on his part, seemed glad to do a +kindness as well as to find company. We jolted along, chatting at +arm's length, as it were, about this and that. He knew nothing of +the ivory-bill; but wild turkeys—oh, yes, he had seen a flock +of eight, as well as he could count, not long before, crossing the +road in the very woods through which I was going. As for snakes, +they were plenty enough, he guessed. One of his horses was bitten +while ploughing, and died in half an hour. (A Florida man who +cannot tell at least one snake story may be set down as having land +to sell.) He thought it a pretty good jaunt to the lake, and the +road wasn't any too plain, though no doubt I should get there; but +I began to perceive that a white man who traveled such distances on +foot in that country was more of a <i>rara avis</i> than any +woodpecker.</p> +<p>Our roads diverged after a while, and my own soon ran into a +wood with an undergrowth of saw palmetto. This was the place for +the ivory-bill, and as at the swamp two days before, so now I +stopped and listened, and then stopped and listened again. The +Fates were still against me. There was neither woodpecker nor +turkey, and I pushed on, mostly through pine woods—full of +birds, but nothing new—till I came out at the lake. Here, +beside an idle sawmill and heaps of sawdust, I was greeted by a +solitary negro, well along in years, who demanded, in a tone of +almost comical astonishment, where in the world I had come from. I +told him from Tallahassee, and he seemed so taken aback that I +began to think I must look uncommonly like an invalid, a "Northern +consumptive," perhaps. Otherwise, why should a walk of six miles, +or something less, be treated as such a marvel? However, the negro +and I were soon on the friendliest of terms, talking of the old +times, the war, the prospects of the colored people (the younger +ones were fast going to the bad, he thought), while I stood looking +out over the lake, a pretty sheet of water, surrounded mostly by +cypress woods, but disfigured for the present by the doings of +lumbermen. What interested me most (such is the fate of the +devotee) was a single barn swallow, the first and only one that I +saw on my Southern trip.</p> +<p>On my way back to the city, after much fatherly advice about the +road on the part of the negro, who seemed to feel that I ran the +greatest risk of getting lost, I made two more additions to my +Florida catalogue —the wood duck and the yellow-billed +cuckoo, the latter unexpectedly early (April 11), since Mr. Chapman +had recorded it as arriving at Gainesville at a date sixteen days +later than this.</p> +<p>I did not repeat my visit to Lake Bradford; but, not to give up +the ivory-bill too easily,—and because I must walk somewhere, +—I went again as far as the palmetto scrub. This time, though +I still missed the woodpecker, I was fortunate enough to come upon +a turkey. In the thickest part of the wood, as I turned a corner, +there she stood before me in the middle of the road. She ran along +the horse-track for perhaps a rod, and then disappeared among the +palmetto leaves.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, two or three days before, while returning from St. +Mark's, whither I had gone for a day on the river, I had noticed +from the car window a swamp, or baygall, which looked so promising +that I went the very next morning to see what it would yield. I had +taken it for a cypress swamp, but it proved to be composed mainly +of oaks; very tall but rather slender trees, heavily draped with +hanging moss and standing in black water. Among them were the +swollen stumps, three or four feet high, of larger trees which had +been felled. I pushed in through the surrounding shrubbery and +bay-trees, and waited for some time, leaning against one of the +larger trunks and listening to the noises, of which the air of the +swamp was full. Great-crested flycatchers, two Acadian flycatchers, +a multitude of blue yellow-backed warblers, and what I supposed to +be some loud-voiced frogs were especially conspicuous in the +concert; but a Carolina wren, a cardinal, a red-eyed vireo, and a +blue-gray gnatcatcher, the last with the merest thread of a voice, +contributed their share to the medley, and once a chickadee struck +up his sweet and gentle strain in the very depths of the +swamp— like an angel singing in hell.</p> +<p>My walk on the railway, that wonderful St. Mark's branch (I +could never have imagined the possibility of running trains over so +crazy a track), took me through the choicest of bird country. The +bushes were alive, and the air rang with music. In the midst of the +chorus I suddenly caught somewhere before me what I had no doubt +was the song of a purple finch, a bird that I had not yet seen in +Florida. I quickened my steps, and to my delight the singer proved +to be a blue grosbeak. I had caught a glimpse of one two days +before, as I have described in another chapter, but with no +opportunity for a final identification. Here, as it soon turned +out, there were at least four birds, all males, and all singing; +chasing each other about after the most persistent fashion, in a +piece of close shrubbery with tall trees interspersed, and acting +—the four of them—just as two birds are often seen to +do when contending for the possession of a building site. At a +first hearing the song seems not so long sustained as the purple +finch's commonly is, but exceedingly like it in voice and manner, +though not equal to it, I should be inclined to say, in either +respect. The birds made frequent use of a monosyllabic call, +corresponding to the calls of the purple finch and the +rose-breasted grosbeak, but readily distinguishable from both. I +was greatly pleased to see them, and thought them extremely +handsome, with their dark blue plumage set off by wing patches of +rich chestnut.</p> +<p>A little farther, and I was saluted by the saucy cry of my first +Florida chat. The fellow had chosen just such a tangled thicket as +he favors in Massachusetts, and whistled and kept out of sight +after the most approved manner of his kind. On the other side of +the track a white-eyed vireo was asserting himself, as he had been +doing since the day I reached St. Augustine; but though he seems a +pretty clever substitute for the chat in the chat's absence, his +light is quickly put out when the clown himself steps into the +ring. Ground doves cooed, cardinals whistled, and mocking-birds +sang and mocked by turns. Orchard orioles, no unworthy companions +of mocking-birds and cardinals, sang here and there from a low +treetop, especially in the vicinity of houses. To judge from what I +saw, they are among the most characteristic of Tallahassee birds, +—as numerous as Baltimore orioles are in Massachusetts towns, +and frequenting much the same kind of places. In one day's walk I +counted twenty-five. Elegantly dressed as they are,—and +elegance is better than brilliancy, perhaps, even in a +bird,—they seem to be thoroughly democratic. It was a +pleasure to see them so fond of cabin door-yards.</p> +<p>Of the other birds along the St. Mark's railway, let it be +enough to mention white-throated and white-crowned sparrows, +red-eyed chewinks (the white-eye was not found in the Tallahassee +region), a red-bellied woodpecker, two red-shouldered hawks, +shrikes, kingbirds, yellow-throated warblers, Maryland +yellow-throats, pine warblers, palm warblers,—which in spite +of their name seek their summer homes north of the United +States,—myrtle warblers, now grown scarce, house wrens, +summer tanagers, and quails. The last-named birds, by the way, I +had expected to find known as "partridges" at the South, but as a +matter of fact I heard that name applied to them only once. On the +St. Augustine road, before breakfast, I met an old negro setting +out for his day's work behind a pair of oxen. "Taking some good +exercise?" he asked, by way of a neighborly greeting; and, not to +be less neighborly than he, I responded with some remark about a +big shot-gun which occupied a conspicuous place in his cart. "Oh," +he said, "game is plenty out where we are going, about eight miles, +and I take the gun along." "What kind of game?" "Well, sir, we may +sometimes find a partridge." I smiled at the anti-climax, but was +glad to hear Bob White honored for once with his Southern +title.</p> +<p>A good many of my jaunts took me past the gallinule swamp before +mentioned, and almost always I stopped and went near. It was worth +while to hear the poultry cries of the gallinules if nothing more; +and often several of the birds would be seen swimming about among +the big white lilies and the green tussocks. Once I discovered one +of them sitting upright on a stake,—a precarious seat, off +which he soon tumbled awkwardly into the water. At another time, on +the same stake, sat some dark, strange-looking object. The +opera-glass showed it at once to be a large bird sitting with its +back toward me, and holding its wings uplifted in the familiar +heraldic, <i>e-pluribus-unum</i> attitude of our American +spread-eagle; but even then it was some seconds before I recognized +it as an anhinga,—water turkey,—though it was a male in +full nuptial garb. I drew nearer and nearer, and meanwhile it +turned squarely about,—a slow and ticklish operation,— +so that its back was presented to the sun; as if it had dried one +side of its wings and tail,—for the latter, too, was fully +spread, —and now would dry the other. There for some time it +sat preening its feathers, with monstrous twistings and untwistings +of its snaky neck. If the chat is a clown, the water turkey would +make its fortune as a contortionist. Finally it rose, circled about +till it got well aloft, and then, setting its wings, sailed away +southward and vanished, leaving me in a state of wonder as to where +it had come from, and whether it was often to be seen in such a +place—perfectly open, close beside the highway, and not far +from houses. I did not expect ever to see another, but the next +morning, on my way up the railroad to pay a second visit to the +ivory-bill's swamp, I looked up by chance, —a brown thrush +was singing on the telegraph wire,—and saw two anhingas +soaring overhead, their silvery wings glistening in the sun as they +wheeled. I kept my glass on them till the distance swallowed them +up.</p> +<p>Of one long forenoon's ramble I retain particular remembrance, +not on account of any birds, but for a half hour of pleasant human +intercourse. I went out of the city by an untried road, hoping to +find some trace of migrating birds, especially of certain warblers, +the prospect of whose acquaintance was one of the lesser +considerations which had brought me so far from home. No such trace +appeared, however, nor, in my fortnight's stay in Tallahassee, in +almost the height of the migratory season, did I, so far as I could +tell, see a single passenger bird of any sort. Some species arrived +from the South—cuckoos and orioles, for example; others, no +doubt, took their departure for the North; but to the best of my +knowledge not one passed through. It was a strange contrast to what +is witnessed everywhere in New England. By some other route swarms +of birds must at that moment have been entering the United States +from Mexico and beyond; but unless my observation was at +fault,— and I am assured that sharper eyes than mine have had +a similar experience,—their line of march did not bring them +into the Florida hill-country. My morning's road not only showed me +no birds, but led me nowhere, and, growing discouraged, I turned +back till I came to a lane leading off to the left at right angles. +This I followed so far that it seemed wise, if possible, to make my +way back to the city without retracing my steps. Not to spend my +strength for naught, however (the noonday sun having always to be +treated with respect), I made for a solitary house in the distance. +Another lane ran past it. That, perhaps, would answer my purpose. I +entered the yard, all ablaze with roses, and in response to my +knock a gentleman appeared upon the doorstep. Yes, he said, the +lane would carry me straight to the Meridian road (so I think he +called it), and thence into the city. "Past Dr. H.'s?" I asked. +"Yes." And then I knew where I was.</p> +<p>First, however, I must let my new acquaintance show me his +garden. His name was G., he said. Most likely I had heard of him, +for the legislature was just then having a good deal to say about +his sheep, in connection with some proposed dog-law. Did I like +roses? As he talked he cut one after another, naming each as he put +it into my hand. Then I must look at his Japanese persimmon trees, +and many other things. Here was a pretty shrub. Perhaps I could +tell what it was by crushing and smelling a leaf? No; it was +something familiar; I sniffed, and looked foolish, and after all he +had to tell me its name—camphor. So we went the rounds of the +garden,—frightening a mocking-bird off her nest in an +orange-tree,—till my hands were full. It is too bad I have +forgotten how many pecan-trees he had planted, and how many sheep +he kept. A well-regulated memory would have held fast to such +figures: mine is certain only that there were four eggs in the +mocking-bird's nest. Mr. G. was a man of enterprise, at any rate; a +match for any Yankee, although he had come to Florida not from +Yankeeland, but from northern Georgia. I hope all his crops are +still thriving, especially his white roses and his Marshal +Niels.</p> +<p>In the lane, after skirting some pleasant woods, which I meant +to visit again, but found no opportunity, I was suddenly assaulted +by a pair of brown thrashers, half beside themselves after their +manner because of my approach to their nest. How close my approach +was I cannot say; but it must be confessed that I played upon their +fears to the utmost of my ability, wishing to see as many of their +neighbors as the disturbance would bring together. Several other +thrashers, a catbird, and two house wrens appeared (all these, +since "blood is thicker than water," may have felt some special +cousinly solicitude, for aught I know), with a ruby-crowned kinglet +and a field sparrow.</p> +<p>In the valley, near a little pond, as I came out into the +Meridian road, a solitary vireo was singing, in the very spot where +one had been heard six days before. Was it the same bird? I asked +myself. And was it settled for the summer? Such an explanation +seemed the more likely because I had found no solitary vireo +anywhere else about the city, though the species had been common +earlier in the season in eastern and southern Florida, where I had +seen my last one—at New Smyrna—March 26.</p> +<p>At this same dip in the Meridian road, on a previous visit, I +had experienced one of the pleasantest of my Tallahassee +sensations. The morning was one of those when every bird is in +tune. By the road side I had just passed Carolina wrens, house +wrens, a chipper, a field sparrow, two thrashers, an abundance of +chewinks, two orchard orioles, several tanagers, a flock of quail, +and mocking-birds and cardinals uncounted. In a pine wood near by, +a wood pewee, a pine warbler, a yellow-throated warbler, and a +pine-wood sparrow were singing—a most peculiarly select and +modest chorus. Just at the lowest point in the valley I stopped to +listen to a song which I did not recognize, but which, by and by, I +settled upon as probably the work of a freakish prairie warbler. At +that moment, as if to confirm my conjecture,—which in the +retrospect becomes almost ridiculous,—a prairie warbler +hopped into sight on an outer twig of the water-oak out of which +the music had proceeded. Still something said, "Are you sure?" and +I stepped inside the fence. There on the ground were two or three +white-crowned sparrows, and in an instant the truth of the case +flashed upon me. I remembered the saying of a friend, that the song +of the white-crown had reminded him of the vesper sparrow and the +black-throated green warbler. That was my bird; and I listened +again, though I could no longer be said to feel in doubt. A long +time I waited. Again and again the birds sang, and at last I +discovered one of them perched at the top of the oak, tossing back +his head and warbling —a white-crowned sparrow: the one +regular Massachusetts migrant which I had often seen, but had never +heard utter a sound.</p> +<p>The strain opens with smooth, sweet notes almost exactly like +the introductory syllables of the vesper sparrow. Then the tone +changes, and the remainder of the song is in something like the +pleasingly hoarse voice of a prairie warbler, or a black-throated +green. It is soft and very pretty; not so perfect a piece of art as +the vesper sparrow's tune,— few bird-songs are,—but +taking for its very oddity, and at the same time tender and sweet. +More than one writer has described it as resembling the song of the +white-throat. Even Minot, who in general was the most painstaking +and accurate of observers, as he is one of the most interesting of +our systematic writers, says that the two songs are "almost +exactly" alike. There could be no better example of the fallibility +which attaches, and in the nature of the case must attach, to all +writing upon such subjects. The two songs have about as much in +common as those of the hermit thrush and the brown thrasher, or +those of the song sparrow and the chipper. In other words, they +have nothing in common. Probably in Minot's case, as in so many +others of a similar nature, the simple explanation is that when he +thought he was listening to one bird he was really listening to +another.</p> +<p>The Tallahassee road to which I had oftenest resorted, to which, +now, from far Massachusetts, I oftenest look back, the St. +Augustine road, so called, I have spoken of elsewhere. Thither, +after packing my trunk on the morning of the 18th, I betook myself +for a farewell stroll. My holiday was done. For the last time, +perhaps, I listened to the mocking-bird and the cardinal, as by and +by, when the grand holiday is over, I shall listen to my last wood +thrush and my last bluebird. But what then? Florida fields are +still bright, and neither mocking-bird nor cardinal knows aught of +my absence. And so it <i>will</i> be.</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p>"When you and I behind the Veil are past,</p> +<p>Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last."</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>None the less, it is good to have lived our day and taken our +peep at the mighty show. Ten thousand things we may have fretted +ourselves about, uselessly or worse. But to have lived in the sun, +to have loved natural beauty, to have felt the majesty of trees, to +have enjoyed the sweetness of flowers and the music of +birds,—so much, at least, is not vanity nor vexation of +spirit.</p> +<a name="index"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>INDEX</h2> +<div class="index"> +<p>Air-plants</p> +<p>Alligator</p> +<p>Azalea</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Baptisia</p> +<p>Beggar's-ticks</p> +<p>Blackberry</p> +<p>Blackbird red—wing</p> +<p>Bladderwort</p> +<p>Bluebird</p> +<p>Blue-eyed Grass</p> +<p>Butterworts</p> +<p>Buzzard turkey</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Calopogon</p> +<p>Carrion Crow (Black Vulture)</p> +<p>Catbird</p> +<p>Cedar-bird</p> +<p>Cedar, red</p> +<p>Chat, yellow-breasted</p> +<p>Cherokee Rose</p> +<p>Cherry, wild</p> +<p>Chewink (Towhee):—</p> +<p class="i2">red-eyed</p> +<p class="i2">white—eyed</p> +<p>Chickadee, Carolina</p> +<p>Chimney Swift</p> +<p>Chuck-will's-widow</p> +<p>Clematis Baldwinii</p> +<p>Clover, buffalo</p> +<p>Cloudberry</p> +<p>Coot (Fulica americana)</p> +<p>Coquina Clam</p> +<p>Coreopsis</p> +<p>Cormorant</p> +<p>Crab-apple</p> +<p>Creeper, black-and-white</p> +<p>Cross-vine</p> +<p>Crow</p> +<p>Cuckoo, yellow-billed</p> +<p>Cypress-tree</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Dabchick</p> +<p>Dove:—</p> +<p class="i2">Carolina</p> +<p class="i2">ground</p> +<p>Duck, wood</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Eagle, bald</p> +<p>Egret:—</p> +<p class="i2">great white</p> +<p class="i2">little white</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Fish-hawk</p> +<p>Flicker (Golden-winged Woodpecker)</p> +<p>Flowering Dogwood</p> +<p>Flycatchers:—</p> +<p class="i2">Acadian</p> +<p class="i2">crested</p> +<p class="i2">kingbird</p> +<p class="i2">phoebe</p> +<p class="i2">wood pewee</p> +<p>Fringe-bush</p> +<p>Frogs</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Gallinule:—</p> +<p class="i2">Florida</p> +<p class="i2">purple</p> +<p>Gannet</p> +<p>Gnatcatcher, blue-gray</p> +<p>Golden club</p> +<p>Goldenrod</p> +<p>Grackle, boat-tailed</p> +<p>Grebe, pied-billed</p> +<p>Grosbeak:—</p> +<p class="i2">cardinal</p> +<p class="i2">blue</p> +<p>Gull:—</p> +<p class="i2">Bonaparte's</p> +<p class="i2">ring-billed</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Hawk:—</p> +<p class="i2">fish</p> +<p class="i2">marsh</p> +<p class="i2">red-shouldered</p> +<p class="i2">sparrow</p> +<p class="i2">swallow-tailed</p> +<p class="i2">Heron:—</p> +<p class="i2">great blue</p> +<p class="i2">great white (<i>or</i> Egret)</p> +<p class="i2">green</p> +<p class="i2">little blue</p> +<p class="i2">Louisiana</p> +<p class="i2">night (black-crowned)</p> +<p class="i2">Honeysuckle:—</p> +<p class="i2">scarlet</p> +<p class="i2">white</p> +<p>Houstonia, round-leaved</p> +<p>Humming-bird, ruby-throated</p> +<p>Hypoxis</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Iris versicolor</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Jay:—</p> +<p class="i2">Florida</p> +<p class="i2">Florida blue</p> +<p>Judas-tree</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Killdeer Plover</p> +<p>Kingbird</p> +<p>Kingfisher</p> +<p>Kinglet, ruby—crowned</p> +<p>Kite, fork-tailed</p> +<p>Krigia</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Lantana</p> +<p>Lark meadow</p> +<p>Leptopoda</p> +<p>Live-oak</p> +<p>Lizards</p> +<p>Lobelia Feayana</p> +<p>Loggerhead Shrike</p> +<p>Lygodesmia</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Martin, purple</p> +<p>Maryland Yellow-throat</p> +<p>Mocking-bird</p> +<p>Mullein</p> +<p>Myrtle Bird <i>See</i> Warbler</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Night-hawk</p> +<p>Nuthatch, brown-headed</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Orange wild</p> +<p>Oriole, orchard</p> +<p>Osprey <i>See</i> Fish-Hawk</p> +<p>Oven-bird</p> +<p>Oxalis, yellow</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Papaw</p> +<p>Paroquet</p> +<p>Partridge-berry</p> +<p>Pelican:—</p> +<p class="i2">brown</p> +<p class="i2">white</p> +<p>Persimmon</p> +<p>Phoebe</p> +<p>Pipewort</p> +<p>Poison Ivy</p> +<p>Poppy, Mexican</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Quail</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Rail:—</p> +<p class="i2">Carolina</p> +<p class="i2">clapper</p> +<p class="i2">king</p> +<p>Redbird (Cardinal Grosbeak)</p> +<p>"Ricebird"</p> +<p>Robin</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Salvia lyrata</p> +<p>Sanderling</p> +<p>Sandpiper:—</p> +<p class="i2">solitary</p> +<p class="i2">spotted</p> +<p>Sassafras</p> +<p>Schrankia</p> +<p>Senecio</p> +<p>Shrike, loggerhead</p> +<p>Sow Thistle</p> +<p>Snakebird (Water Turkey)</p> +<p>Sparrow:—</p> +<p class="i2">chipping</p> +<p class="i2">field</p> +<p class="i2">grasshopper (yellow-winged)</p> +<p class="i2">pine-wood</p> +<p class="i2">savanna</p> +<p class="i2">song</p> +<p class="i2">white-crowned</p> +<p class="i2">white-throated</p> +<p>Spiderwort</p> +<p>St Peter's-wort</p> +<p>Strawberry</p> +<p>Swallow:—</p> +<p class="i2">barn</p> +<p class="i2">rough-winged</p> +<p class="i2">tree (white-bellied)</p> +<p>Swift, chimney</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Tanager, summer</p> +<p>Tern</p> +<p>Thorns</p> +<p>Thrasher (Brown Thrush)</p> +<p>Thrush:—</p> +<p class="i2">hermit</p> +<p class="i2">Northern water</p> +<p class="i2">Louisiana water</p> +<p>Titlark</p> +<p>Titmouse:—</p> +<p class="i2">Carolina</p> +<p class="i2">tufted</p> +<p>Towhee <i>See</i> Chewink</p> +<p>Turkey</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Vaccinium, arboreum</p> +<p>Venus's Looking-glass (Specularia)</p> +<p>Verbena</p> +<p>Violets</p> +<p>Vireo:—</p> +<p class="i2">red-eyed</p> +<p class="i2">solitary</p> +<p class="i2">white-eyed</p> +<p class="i2">yellow-throated</p> +<p>Virginia creeper</p> +<p>Vulture (Carrion Crow)</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Warbler:—</p> +<p class="i2">black-throated green</p> +<p class="i2">blue yellow-backed</p> +<p class="i2">myrtle (yellow-rumped)</p> +<p class="i2">palm (yellow redpoll)</p> +<p class="i2">pine</p> +<p class="i2">prairie</p> +<p class="i2">yellow-throated (Dendroica dominica)</p> +<p>Water Lily</p> +<p>Water Thrush:—</p> +<p class="i2">Louisiana</p> +<p class="i2">Northern</p> +<p>Water Turkey (Snakebird)</p> +<p>Wood Pewee</p> +<p>Woodpecker:—</p> +<p class="i2">downy</p> +<p class="i2">golden-winged (flicker)</p> +<p class="i2">ivory-billed</p> +<p class="i2">pileated</p> +<p class="i2">red-bellied</p> +<p class="i2">red-cockaded</p> +<p class="i2">red-headed</p> +<p>Wren:—</p> +<p class="i2">Carolina (mocking)</p> +<p class="i2">house</p> +<p class="i2">long-billed marsh</p> +<p class="i2">winter</p> +</div> +<br> +<div class="index"> +<p>Yellow Jessamine</p> +<p>Yellow-legs (Totanus flavipes)</p> +</div> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full"> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote1" name= +"footnote1"></a> <b>Footnote 1</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag1">(return)</a> +<p>Two races of the pine-wood sparrow are recognized by +ornithologists, <i>Pucaea aestivalis</i> and <i>P. aestivalis +bachmanii</i>, and both of them have been found in Florida; but, if +I understand the matter right, <i>Pucaea aestivalis</i> is the +common and typical Florida bird.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote2" name= +"footnote2"></a> <b>Footnote 2</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag2">(return)</a> +<p>Bulletin on the Nuttall Ornithological Club, vol. vii. p. +98.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote3" name= +"footnote3"></a> <b>Footnote 3</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag3">(return)</a> +<p>As it was, I did not find <i>Dendroica virens</i> in Florida. On +my way home, in Atlanta, April 20, I saw one bird in a dooryard +shade-tree.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote4" name= +"footnote4"></a> <b>Footnote 4</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag4">(return)</a> +<p>I have heard this useful word all my life, and now am surprised +to find it wanting in the dictionaries.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote5" name= +"footnote5"></a> <b>Footnote 5</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag5">(return)</a> +<p>I speak as if I had accepted my own study of the manual as +conclusive. I did for the time being, but while writing this +paragraph I bethought myself that I might be in error, after all. I +referred the question, therefore, to a friend, a botanist of +authority. "No wonder the red cedars of Florida puzzled you," he +replied. "No one would suppose at first that they were of the same +species as our New England savins. The habit is entirely different; +but botanists have found no characters by which to separate them, +and you are safe in considering them as <i>Juniperus +Virginiana</i>."</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote6" name= +"footnote6"></a> <b>Footnote 6</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag6">(return)</a> +<p>My suggestion, I now discover,—since this paper was first +printed,—was some years too late. Mr. Ridgway, in his +<i>Manual of North American Birds</i> (1887), had already described +a subspecies of Florida redwings under the name of <i>Agelaius +phoeniceus bryanti</i>. Whether my New Smyrna birds should come +under that title cannot be told, of course, in the absence of +specimens; but on the strength of the song I venture to think it +highly probable.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote7" name= +"footnote7"></a> <b>Footnote 7</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag7">(return)</a> +<p>I have called the ruin here spoken of a "sugar mill" for no +better reason than because that is the name commonly applied to it +by the residents of the town. When this sketch was written, I had +never heard of a theory since broached in some of our Northern +newspapers,—I know not by whom,—that the edifice in +question was built as a chapel, perhaps by Columbus himself! I +should be glad to believe it, and can only add my hope that he will +be shown to have built also the so-called sugar mill a few miles +north of New Smyrna, in the Dunlawton hammock behind Port Orange. +In that, to be sure, there is still much old machinery, but perhaps +its presence would prove no insuperable objection to a theory so +pleasing. In matters of this kind, much depends upon subjective +considerations; in one sense, at least, "all things are possible to +him that believeth." For my own part, I profess no opinion. I am +neither an archaeologist nor an ecclesiastic, and speak simply as a +chance observer.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote8" name= +"footnote8"></a> <b>Footnote 8</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag8">(return)</a> +<p><i>The Auk</i>, vol. v. p. 273.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote9" name= +"footnote9"></a> <b>Footnote 9</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag9">(return)</a> +<p>But let no enthusiast set out to walk from one city to the other +on the strength of what is here written. After this sketch was +first printed—in <i>The Atlantic Monthly</i>—a +gentleman who ought to know whereof he speaks sent me word that my +informants were all of them wrong—that the road does not run +to St. Augustine. For myself, I assert nothing. As my colored boy +said, "I ain't tried it."</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote10" name= +"footnote10"></a> <b>Footnote 10</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag10">(return)</a> +<p>He did not say "upon" any more than Northern white boys do.</p> +</blockquote> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote11" name= +"footnote11"></a> <b>Footnote 11</b>: <a href= +"#footnotetag11">(return)</a> +<p><i>By-Ways and Bird-Notes</i>, p. 20.</p> +</blockquote> +<hr class="full"> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10760 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |