EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 13 



shooting here and there a bird, or squatting down on our hams 

 for half an hour, to observe the ways of the beautiful beings 

 we are in pursuit of. This is the way in which we spend the 

 day. At the approach of evening, the cranes, herons, pelicans, 

 curlews, and the trains of blackbirds are passing high over our 

 heads, to their roosting places; then we also return to ours. 

 If some species are to draw the next day, and the weather is 

 warm, they are outlined that same evening, to save them from 

 incipient putridity. I have ascertained that feathers lose their 

 brilliancy almost as rapidly as flesh or skin itself, and am of 

 opinion that a bird alive is 75 per cent more rich in colours 

 than twenty-four hours after its death; we therefore skin 

 those first which have been first killed, and the same evening. 

 All this, added to our other avocations, brings us into the night 

 pretty well fatigued. Such, my dear friend, is the life of an 

 active naturalist ; and such, in my opinion, it ought to be. It 

 is nonsense ever to hope to see in the closet what is only to 

 be perceived — as far as the laws, arrangements and beauties of 

 ornithological nature is concerned, — by that devotion of time, 

 opportunities, and action, to which I have consecrated my 

 life, not without hope that science may benefit by my labours. 

 As to geology, my dear Friend, you know as well as my- 

 self, that I am not in the country for that. The instructions 

 you gave me are very valuable, and I shall be vigilant. The 

 aspect of the country will soon begin to change, and as I pro- 

 ceed, I will write to you about all we see and do. . . . Do not 

 be afraid of my safety ; I take a reasonable care of my health 

 and life. I know how to guard against real difficulties, and 

 I have no time to attend to that worst of all kinds of diffi- 

 culties, — imaginary ones. Circumstances never within my con- 

 trol, threw me upon my own resources, at a very early period 

 of my life. I have grown up in the school of adversity, and 

 am not an unprofitable scholar there, having learnt to be satis- 

 fied with providing for my family and myself by my own exer- 

 tions. The life I lead is my vocation, full of smooth and rough 

 paths, like every vocation which men variously try. My physi- 

 cal constitution has always been good, and the fine flow of 



