WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 221 



he had seen a flock of eight, as well as he 

 could count, not long before, crossing the 

 road in the very woods through which I was 

 going. As for snakes, they were plenty 

 enough, he guessed. One of his horses was 

 bitten while ploughing, and died in half 

 an hour. (A Florida man who cannot tell 

 at least one snake story may be set down 

 as having land to sell.) He thought it a 

 pretty good jaunt to the lake, and the road 

 was n't any too plain, though no doubt I 

 should get there ; but I began to perceive 

 that a white man who traveled such dis- 

 tances on foot in that country was more of 

 a rara avis than any woodpecker. 



Our roads diverged after a while, and my 

 own soon ran into a wood with an under- 

 growth of saw palmetto. This was the place 

 for the ivory-bill, and as at the swamp two 

 days before, so now I stopped and listened, 

 and then stopped and listened again. The 

 Fates were still against me. There was nei- 

 ther woodpecker nor turkey, and I pushed on, 

 mostly through pine woods full of birds, 

 but nothing new till I came out at the lake. 

 Here, beside an idle sawmill and heaps of 

 sawdust, I was greeted by a solitary negro, 



