ON THE UPPER ST. JOHN’S. 133 
populous with barn-yard fowls, the fellow 
keeps up such a clatter : now loud and terror- 
stricken, “like a hen whose head is just go- 
ing to be cut off,” as a friend once expressed 
it; then soft and full of content, as if the 
aforesaid hen had laid an egg ten minutes 
before, and were still felicitating herself 
upon the achievement. It was vexatious 
that here, in the very home of Florida galli- 
nules, I should see and hear less of them 
than I had more than once done in Massa- 
chusetts, where they are esteemed a pretty 
choice rarity, and where, in spite of what 
I suppose must be called exceptional good 
luck, my acquaintance with them had been 
limited to perhaps half a dozen birds. But 
in affairs of this kind a direct chase is 
seldom the best rewarded. At one point 
the boatman pulled up to a thicket of small 
willows, bidding me be prepared to see birds 
in enormous numbers ; but we found only a 
small company of night herons —evidently 
breeding there — and a green heron. The 
latter my boy shot before I knew what he 
was doing. He took my reproof in good 
part, protesting that he had had only a 
glimpse of the bird, and had taken it for a 
