A COTTON PLANTATION. 191 



more the muddy shore of the cane-swamp, 

 where the yellowlegs and sandpipers were 

 still feeding. That brought me to the road 

 from which I had made my entry to the 

 place some days before; but, being still 

 unable to forego a splendid possibility, I 

 recrossed the plantation, tarried again in 

 the glade, sat again on the wooden fence (if 

 that grosbeak only would show himself!), 

 and thence went on, picking a few heads of 

 handsome buffalo clover, the first I had ever 

 seen, and some sprays of penstemon, till I 

 came again to the six-barred gate and the 

 Quincy road. At that point, as I now re- 

 member, the air was full of vultures (carrion 

 crows), a hundred or more, soaring over the 

 fields in some fit of gregariousness. Along 

 the road were white - crowned and white- 

 throated sparrows (it was the 12th of April), 

 orchard orioles, thrashers, summer tanagers, 

 myrtle and paim warblers, cardinal gros- 

 beaks, mocking-birds, kingbirds, logger- 

 heads, yellow - throated vireos, and sundry 

 others, but not the blue grosbeak, which 

 would have been worth them all. 



Once back at the hotel, I opened my 

 Coues's Key to refresh my memory as to 



