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.
Three days afterward we went up the river. At the upper end of the lake
were many white-billed coots (_Fulica americana_); 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!"
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.
"I think I must go back and kill that fellow," he said.
"Why so?" I asked, with surprise, for I had looked upon it simply as a
curiosity.
"Oh, I don't like to see it live. It's the poisonousest snake there is."
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.
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?
"They are not common yet," he would say. "By and by they will be as thick
as Floridas are now."
"But don't they stay here all winter?"
"No, sir; not the purples."
"Are you certain about that?"
"Oh yes, sir. I have hunted this river too much. They couldn't be here in
the winter without my knowing it."
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.
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.
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; "didn'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.
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 it got there, I
have no idea. Our first bird kept his bill parted, as if in distress; a
peculiar action, which probably had some connection with the other bird's
presence, although the two paid no attention to each other so far as we
could make out. When we had watched them as long as we pleased, I told
the boy to pull the boat forward till they rose. We got within thirty
feet, I think. At that point they took flight, and, side by side, went
soaring into the air, now flapping their wings, now scaling in unison. It
was beautiful to see. As they sat in the willows and gazed about, their
long necks were sometimes twisted like corkscrews,--or so they looked, at
all events.
The water-turkey is one of the very oddest of birds. I am not likely
to forget the impression made upon me by the first one I saw. It was
standing on a prostrate log, but rose, as I drew near, and, to my
surprise, mounted to a prodigious elevation, where for a long time it
remained, sailing round and round with all the grace of a hen-hawk or
an eagle. Its neck and head were tenuous almost beyond belief,--like a
knitting-needle, I kept repeating to myself. Its tail. 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.
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 _set_ 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.
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?
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.
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!
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 sand-hill
crane, a bird which is said to have such a habit.
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.
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.
ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD.
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.
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.