WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 221 
he had seen a flock of eight, as well as he 
could count, not long before, crossing the 
road in the very woods through which I was 
going. As for snakes, they were plenty 
enough, he guessed. One of his horses was 
bitten while ploughing, and died in half 
an hour. (A Florida man who cannot tell 
at least one snake story may be set down 
as having land to sell.) He thought it a 
pretty good jaunt to the lake, and the road 
was n’t any too plain, though no doubt I 
should get there; but I began to perceive 
that a white man who traveled such dis- 
tances on foot in that country was more of 
a rara avis than any woodpecker. 
Our roads diverged after a while, and my 
own soon ran into a wood with an under- 
growth of saw palmetto. This was the place 
for the ivory-bill, and as at the swamp two 
days before, so now I stopped and listened, 
and then stopped and listened again. The 
Fates were still against me. There was nei- 
ther woodpecker nor turkey, and I pushed on, 
mostly through pine woods — full of birds, 
but nothing new— till I came out at the lake. 
Here, beside an idle sawmill and heaps of 
sawdust, I was greeted by a solitary negro, 
