ON THE ST. AUGUSTINE ROAD. 171 
dooryard. ‘ Yes,” he said, “I love to hear 
‘em. They’s very amusin’, very amusin’.” 
My own feeling can hardly be a prejudice, 
conscious or unconscious, in favor of what 
has grown dear to me through early and 
long-continued association. The difference 
between the music of birds like the mocker, 
the thrasher, and the catbird and that of 
birds like the hermit, the veery, and the 
wood thrush is one of kind, not of degree; 
and I have heard music of the mocking- 
bird’s kind (the thrasher’s, that is to say) 
as long as I have heard music at all. The 
question is one of taste, it is true; but it is 
not a question of familiarity or favoritism. 
All praise to the mocker and the thrasher! 
May their tribe increase! But if we are to 
indulge in comparisons, give me the wood 
thrush, the hermit, and the veery; with 
tones that the mocking-bird can never imi- 
tate, and a simplicity which the Fates — the 
wise Fates, who will have variety — have 
put forever beyond his appreciation and his 
reach. 
Florida as I saw it (let the qualification 
be noted) is no more a land of flowers than 
New England. In some respects, indeed, it 
