WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 211 



afterward, to come upon a confirmatory 

 judgment by Mr. Maurice Thompson, who, 

 if any one, must be competent to speak. 



" If I were going to risk the reputation 

 of our country on the singing of a mock- 

 ing-bird against a European nightingale," 

 says Mr. Thompson, 1 " I should choose my 

 champion from the hill-country in the neigh- 

 borhood of Tallahassee, or from the environs 

 of Mobile. ... I have found no birds else- 

 where to compare with those in that belt of 

 country about thirty miles wide, stretching 

 from Live Oak ih Florida, by way of Talla- 

 hassee, to some miles west of Mobile." 



I had gone down the hill past some ne- 

 gro cabins, into a small, straggling wood, 

 and through the wood to a gate which let 

 me into a plantation lane. It was the fair- 

 est of summer forenoons (to me, I mean ; 

 by the almanac it was only the 5th of 

 April), and one of the fairest of quiet land- 

 scapes: broad fields rising gently to the 

 horizon, and before me, winding upward, a 

 grassy lane open on one side, and bordered 

 on the other by a deep red gulch and a zig- 

 zag fence, along which grew vines, shrubs, 



1 By- Ways and Bird-Notes, p. 20. 



