330 PEAIEIE AND FOREST. 



aware of our vicinity was laughable in the extreme. Off he 

 went with a rush into the brush, making dry and withered 

 limbs crash before him. 



As the constant and severe attention of the flies put 

 fishing out of the question, and I had become surfeited with 

 tobacco from the number of cigars I had consumed, under 

 the fallacy that the smoke would deprive me of their com- 

 pany, I was compelled, as a last resource, to start on a tour 

 of inspection, at the same time hoping that my exertions 

 would be rewarded with the discovery of some quadruped 

 or bird with which I had been previously unacquainted. 

 On entering the scrub bush the mosquitoes became more 

 numerous, and I have little hesitation in saying that the 

 blood-suckers of Arkansas and Mississippi, which bear the 

 same name, are far from proficients when you compare them 

 with those of Labrador. After half an hour's rough 

 scrambling through the morass, I succeeded in gaining 

 more open ground. Kising towards the upper ridges of 

 high lands, the squawberry and blueberry grew in profusion, 

 and the wild strawberry was scattered in patches wherever 

 sufficient sustenance from the impoverished soil could be 

 gained for its support. In straying about I found two 

 nests of the night hawk ; the maternal parent of both was 

 of different plumage from those I have so frequently seen 

 on a summer evening on the banks of the Ohio river; the 

 eggs in each were four in number, of a dirty colour, smudged 

 with brown, and almost lying on the bare rock. This bird 

 is doubless migratory, resorting here in the summer for the 

 purpose of propagation, and spending its winters in the 

 more genial climate of the Southern States where it 



