MIND AND MEMORY OF BIIWS. 13 



most picturesque sort. I do not claim that I 

 chose my old cotton-gin house on account of 

 its poetical suggestiveness ; this quality was 

 simply a great charm added to a spot pos- 

 sessed of many practical advantages in aid of 

 my purpose, which was a peculiar line of 

 bird-study. 



On one side a fresh -water lakelet, on the 

 other side the Gulf of Mexico— great marsh 

 meadows and reaches of sand-bar— dense for- 

 ests, thickets, old fields given over to Nature, 

 orchards left to the will of the mocking-birds 

 and their friends and foes— everything, in- 

 deed, to favor my quest was in view, with 

 the romance and the beauty thrown in for 

 good measure. So, swinging my hammock 

 from the heavy beams of the gin-house loft, 

 and leaving the care of the mule and the 

 spring-wagon to my hired free man of color, 

 who was to be my factotum, I abandoned 

 myself to the study in hand, feeling that for 

 once many elements had joined themselves 

 together to enhance my physical and spirit- 

 ual comfort. Here on the latest fringe of 

 Nature's geological formation, with all the 

 newest discoveries of natural science at hand 

 in the shape of books and memoranda, and 

 with fishes, birds, reptiles and mammals, 

 water of sea, stream and lake, woods, 

 marshes and swamps, with all the range of 

 plants growing in them, what more could I 

 wish ? 



It was comforting to realize what a differ, 

 ence there must be between life now and life 

 some million or more years ago ; for there has 

 been a period in the past when I should have 

 had to be content with sitting upon some 

 bleak, sandy cretaceous shore and studying 



