296 WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 
saucy ery of my first Florida chat. The 
fellow had chosen just such a tangled 
thicket as he favors in Massachusetts, and 
whistled and kept out of sight after the 
most approved manner of his kind. On the 
other side of the track a white-eyed vireo 
was asserting himself, as he had been doing 
since the day I reached St. Augustine ; but 
though he seems a pretty clever substitute 
for the chat in the chat’s absence, his light 
is quickly put out when the clown himself 
steps into the ring. Ground doves cooed, 
cardinals whistled, and mocking-birds sang 
and mocked by turns. Orchard orioles, no 
unworthy companions of mocking-birds and 
cardinals, sang here and there from a low 
treetop, especially in the vicinity of houses. 
To judge from what I saw, they are among 
the most characteristic of Tallahassee birds, 
—as numerous as Baltimore orioles are in 
Massachusetts towns, and frequenting much 
the same kind of places. In one day’s walk 
I counted tweaty-five. Elegantly dressed as 
they are,—and elegance is better than 
brilliancy, perhaps, even in a bird, — they 
seem to be thoroughly democratic. It was 
a pleasure to see them so fond of cabin door- 
yards. 
