80 ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGH. 
mock, through which the road passes, there 
were no birds in it. It was one of those 
places (1 fancy every bird-gazer must have 
had experience of such) where it is a waste 
of time to seek them. I could walk down 
the road for two miles and back again, and 
then sit in my room at the hotel for fifteen 
minutes, and see more wood birds, and more 
kinds of them, in one small live-oak before 
the window than I had seen in the whole 
four miles; and that not once and by acci- 
dent, but again and again. In affairs of this 
kind it is useless to contend. The spot looks 
favorable, you say, and nobody can deny it ; 
there must be birds there, plenty of them; 
your missing them to-day was a matter of 
chance; you will try again. And you try 
again —and again—and yet again. But 
in the end you have to acknowledge that, 
‘for some reason unknown to you, the birds 
have agreed to give that place the go-by. 
One bird, it is true, I found in this ham- 
mock, and not elsewhere: a single oven-bird, 
which, with one Northern water thrush and 
one Louisiana water thrush, completed my 
set of Florida Seiwri. Besides him I recall 
one hermit thrush, a few cedar-birds, a 
