176 ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 



tine road my after-dinner sauntering-place. 

 The morning was for a walk: to Lake ]>i;i<l- 

 ford, perhaps, in search of a mythical ivory- 

 billed woodpecker, or westward on the rail- 

 way for a few miles, with a view to rare 

 migratory warblers. But in the afternoon I 

 did not walk, I loitered ; and though I still 

 minded the birds and flowers, I for the most 

 part forgot my botany and ornithology. In 

 the cool of the day, then (the phrase is an 

 innocent euphemism), I climbed the hill, 

 and after an hour or two on the plateau 

 strolled back again, facing the sunset through 

 a vista of moss-covered live-oaks and sweet 

 gums. Those quiet, incurious hours are 

 among the pleasantest of all my Florida 

 memories. A cuckoo would be cooing, per- 

 haps ; or a quail, with cheerful ambiguity, 

 such as belongs to weather predictions in 

 general, would be prophesying " more 

 wet" and "no more wet" in alternate 

 breaths ; or two or three night-hawks would 

 be sweeping back and forth high above the 

 valley ; or a marsh hawk would be quartering 

 over the big oatfield. The martins would be 

 cackling, in any event, and the kingbirds 

 practicing their aerial mock somersaults ; and 



