CHICKAMAUGA. 87 



side cattle pasture, stopping by the way to 

 admire the activities — and they were ac- 

 tivities — of a set of big scavenger beetles. 

 Next, I tried for half a mile a fine new road 

 leading across the park to the left, with 

 thick, uncleared woods on one side ; and 

 then I went back to Bloody Pond. 



The place was now deserted, and I took 

 a seat under a tree opposite. Prodigious 

 bullfrogs, big enough to have been growing 

 ever since the war, lay here and there upon 

 the water ; now calling in the lustiest bass, 

 now falling silent again after one comical 

 expiring gulp. It was getting toward the 

 cool of the afternoon. Already the birds 

 felt it. A wood thrush's voice rang out 

 at intervals from somewhere beyond the 

 ploughed land, and a field sparrow chanted 

 nearer by. At the same time my eye was 

 upon a pair of kingbirds, — wayfarers here- 

 about, to judge from their behavior ; a 

 crested flycatcher stood guard at the top of 

 a lofty dead tree, and a rough-winged swal- 

 low alighted on the margin of the pool, and 

 began bathing with great enjoyment. It 

 made me comfortable to look at him. By 

 and by two young fellows with fishing-poles 

 came down the railroad. 



