WALKS ABOUT TALLAHASSEE. 233 
my approach was I cannot say ; but it must 
be confessed that I played upon their fears 
to the utmost of my ability, wishing to see 
as many of their neighbors as the disturb- 
ance would bring together. Several other 
thrashers, a catbird, and two house wrens 
appeared (all these, since “ blood is thicker 
than water,” may have felt some special 
cousinly solicitude, for aught I know), with 
a ruby-crowned kinglet and a field sparrow. 
In the valley, near a little pond, as I came 
out into the Meridian road, a solitary vireo 
was singing, in the very spot where one had 
been heard six days before. Was it the 
same bird? I asked myself. And was it 
settled for the summer? Such an explana- 
tion seemed the more likely because I had 
found no solitary vireo anywhere else about 
the city, though the species had been com- 
mon earlier in the season in eastern and 
southern Florida, where I had seen my last 
one — at New Smyrna — March 26. 
At this same dip in the Meridian road, 
on a previous visit, I had experienced one of 
the pleasantest of my Tallahassee sensations. 
The morning was one of those when every 
bird is in tune. By the road side I had just 
