96 ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH. 



said, "and we won't tell him a damned 

 thing." I fear there was nothing distinc- 

 tively Southern about that. 



Here, too, in the heart of the town, was 

 a magnificent cluster of live-oaks, worth 

 coming to Florida to see ; far-spreading, full 

 of ferns and air plants, and heavy with 

 hanging moss. Day after day I went 

 out to admire them. Under them was a 

 neglected orange grove, and in one of the 

 orange-trees, amid the glossy foliage, ap- 

 peared my first summer tanager. It was 

 a royal setting, and the splendid vermilion- 

 red bird was worthy of it. Among the 

 oaks I walked in the evening, listening to 

 the strange low chant of the chuck-will's- 

 widow, a name which the owner himself 

 pronounces with a rest after the first syl- 

 lable. Once, for two or three days, the 

 trees were amazingly full of blue yellow- 

 backed warblers. Numbers of them, a 

 dozen at least, could be heard singing at 

 once directly over one's head, running up 

 the scale not one after another, but literally 

 in unison. Here the tufted titmouse, the 

 very soul of monotony, piped and piped 

 and piped, as if his diapason stop were 



