lifted a striped cap and a very bright
eye above the grass tops to look at me. He did not introduce himself;
indeed, after a moment's steady gaze his head dropped and I saw him no
more, but I heard him rustle in the grass on the way to the
strawberries, of which he demands--and gets--his share.

Ruin fell upon this charming retreat in this wise. One day on my
approach I saw commotion in the shrubs and two negroes at work chopping
great branches out on each side of the path, letting in the sun to my
bank, and turning it into a hideous wreck. I protested.

"Why is this? What are you doing?"

"Oh, we're just cuttin' some pea-poles!" they replied calmly. They had
been too lazy or too indifferent to step ten feet on one side into the
thicker copse, and leave the pretty path in its beauty, and the mischief
was done, and after all it was not my business. I passed on.

Bird-study has other annoyances in that part of the world beside the
human beings of whom I have spoken. Next, perhaps, are the sufferings
which wring the heart all the while. John Burroughs has written the
tragedies of the nests; he could add a chapter more tragical than all,
should he visit the haunts of the mocking-bird. Nothing can be more
dreadful than the systematic and persistent war made upon this bird, of
which nevertheless every Southerner is proud.

Lastly, the hindrances which Dame Nature herself throws around her
mysteries. There are the prickly pears, sowed broadcast over the land so
thickly that one can hardly avoid stepping on them, with thorns sharp as
needles, and as long. One of an inch in length that I had the curiosity
to examine had forty-five thorns, equal to two papers of number six
sharps, that stuck out in every direction, and would pass through an
ordinary shoe with perfect ease. This interesting vegetable has no local
attachments whatever, and readily clings to any part of one's garment.

Then there are the mosquitoes with which the same careful mother peoples
the groves, even in April, industrious little creatures not in the least
enervated by the climate. But her grand dependence, judiciously settled
indeed, is on the sand flies. Wherever there is not a howling
gale--there are the flies in millions, most indefatigable and maddening
of pests. And finally, to take home with you, to remind you pleasantly
of her hospitalities when you have reached your own room, is the tick!

Ties from the outer world began at last to draw. The bir