in the Peninsula of Florida. 141 



and thick brakes, only coming out to feed in the open ground 

 at night. 



Sheldon goes " fire-hunting " whenever the house is in want 

 of fresh meat, and rarely returns empty-handed. Sometimes he 

 kills three of a night. The deer in Florida have been much re- 

 duced in numbers of late years, owing to a disease called " black 

 tongue," which made great havock among them. The disease, 

 however, appears to have passed away, and their numbers are 

 again on the increase. 



The blaze of the pine-knots threw a strong light for fifty yards 

 around us, and we could see plainly where we were going. It 

 would be very unsafe to ride in the dark, for the ground is full of 

 holes, like large rabbit-burrows, made by the Land-tortoises, here 

 called Gophers {Testudo Carolina). These tortoises are extracted 

 from their burrows by hooks with long handles, and are, I believe, 

 used as food. "Fire-hunting" is also equally successful in ob- 

 taining fish. Every night one of Sheldon^s negroes goes out in 

 a boat with some lighted pine-knots at the bow, and with a spear 

 soon obtains enough for the use of the house. 



April 5. — About three miles inland from Sheldon^s there was 

 formerly a sugar-plantation, which was devastated by the Indians 

 in the war of 1835, and is now overgrown with bush. The walls 

 of the sugar-mill, which was burnt, are still standing, and enclose 

 the remains of the steam-engine. This is one of my favourite 

 resorts when after birds. The ruined sugar-mill stands on the 

 edge of the pine-barren, about a hundred yards distant from a 

 dense wood or hummock. I hardly ever go there without find- 

 ing a covey of Quails close under the walls. I go there early 

 this morning, and find a small troop of Florida Jays in some pine- 

 trees which stand close to a scrubby thicket of underwood. The 

 trees are so high that the Jays look no larger than Mocking- 

 birds. I shoot one, and the remainder " dive " (the most expres- 

 sive word I can use) into the thicket ; I go in after them, and 

 succeed in killing two more, after a sharp " hunt " of some ten 

 minutes, during which my clothes suffer considerably from the 

 thiok bush and saw-palmettos. I always observe these Jays either 

 in or close to this scrubby bush, and never elsewhere. Dr. Bryant's 

 experience of them in this particular coincides with mine. 



