THE BEGINNINGS OF SPRING 



MANIFOLD are the perils of journalism. A few 

 weeks ago I filled a letter with the praise, most 

 sincerely felt, of a certain tropical hammock on 

 the road from Miami to Cocoanut Grove, a place 

 full of birds, and destined, so I hoped, to be 

 equally full of music. This eulogy, it transpires, 

 was read by a bird-loving enthusiast from New 

 England, sojourning for the winter at the Hotel 

 Ormond ; and what should he do but send me 

 word, a stranger, that he had packed his trunk 

 and was coming down straightway (two hundred 

 and fifty miles or more) to inspect the wonder. 



In due course he arrived, and as soon as pos- 

 sible I led him out of the city, across the river, 

 through a stretch of blazing sunshine, and at last 

 into the heart of the hammock. It was a long 

 jaunt, much longer than he was prepared for, the 

 afternoon was hot, and to make matters worse the 

 hammock showed almost no sign of that profu- 

 sion of avian existence, with the anticipation of 

 which my glowing periods had filled him. 



Fortunately for my reputation, I had fore- 

 warned him that such would be the case. The 



