FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MIAMI 85 



neck, and after a long flight comes to rest, not 

 in the water, but at the top of a stake. Some- 

 where behind me a flicker is shouting as in 

 springtime, and on one side a mockingbird is 

 calling (" smacking " is the word that comes of 

 itself to my pencil), and a blue-gray gnatcatcher 

 utters now and then a fine, thread-like ejaculation. 

 The stillness is really a relief, even to my or- 

 nithological ears; for though they had been 

 starved for two or three months in Massachu- 

 setts, they have been so dinned with bird voices 

 for the last two days that a brief period of si- 

 lence is grateful. The centre of the town, where 

 I have taken up my abode, literally swarms with 

 fish crows and boat-tailed grackles, every one 

 trying, as it seems, to outdo its rivals in noisi- 

 ness. I remember the day, eight or nine years 

 ago, when in the flatwoods of New Smyrna I 

 spent an hour of almost painful excitement in 

 taking observations upon the first boat-tail I had 

 ever seen. It would have been hard at that 

 moment for me to imagine that so clever and in- 

 teresting a bird could ever become a nuisance. 

 Fortunately, both crow and grackle retire to 

 roost early and are comparatively late risers; 

 otherwise the people of Miami might be driven 

 to violent measures, as against a plague. As 

 things are, the birds have no fears. They alight 



