20 IN THE FLAT-WOODS. 
as it passes; or a bird is singing; or an 
eagle is soaring far overhead, and must be 
watched out of sight; or a buzzard, with 
upturned wings, floats suspiciously near the 
wanderer, as if with sinister intent (buzzard 
shadows are a regular feature of the flat- 
wood landscape, just as cloud shadows are 
in a mountainous country); or a snake lies 
stretched out in the sun, —a “ whip snake,” 
perhaps, that frightens the unwary stroller 
by the amazing swiftness with which it runs 
away from him; or some strange invisible 
insect is making uncanny noises in the 
underbrush. One of my recollections of 
the railway woods at St. Augustine is of 
a cricket, or locust, or something else, —I 
never saw it, — that amused me often with 
a formless rattling or drumming sound. I 
could think of nothing but a boy’s first les- 
son upon the bones, the rhythm of the beats 
was so comically mistimed and bungled. 
One fine morning, —it was the 18th of 
February, —I had gone down the railroad 
a little farther than usual, attracted by the 
encouraging appearance of a swampy patch 
of rather large deciduous trees. Some of 
them, I remember, were red maples, already 
