clined 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.

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.

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 s