10 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



branches the birds build their nests, and in its hollows the 

 squirrel and the hooting owl conceal their young, and the 

 wild bee stores its sweets, while both day and night the 

 buds breathe their perfume, and the wind, the rustling 

 leaves, and its feathered guests, chant an anthem of 

 praise. 



If it be a pleasant thing to see one plant thus munifi- 

 cently endowed, how does it delight the heart to look 

 down the forest, where trees of every hue and form stand 

 in countless numbers, and their shade, with its perpetual 

 twilight, makes a new climate, where new flora gem the 

 sheltered earth, where parasite plants and vines festoon 

 the trees with corridors, gay with flowers, or purple with 

 clustered fruit, where the moss takes the place of grass, 

 and the last year's leaves fill the hollows — where the 

 wild bird and timid game make their home, and gambol 

 in the unrestrained indulgence of natural instincts ! To 

 this scene add the brook cluttered with stones and filled 

 with leaves, the open river tenanted with aquatic birds, 

 and making vistas in the woods, and, lastly, the deep 

 blue of the sea, fringed with the white of the breakers, 

 and complaining of its limits, and you will have the view 

 that is to be met in nearly every sea-coast forest in 

 the land. But in the woods of the far southern States^ 

 and more particularly in the Florida peninsula, Nature 

 develops new beauties, and excites further thoughts of 

 praise to its Creator. 



There simmer first unfauld her robes, 

 And there they langest tarry, 



