MY PET WOOD THRUSHES. 205 



buggy, attended by a bright mulatto boy, bound for the out- 

 skirts of the city I with gun in hand, and my wife with a 

 most provoking look of archness upon her child-like face. I 

 was going forth slaying and to slay, and vowed that I had 

 as soon kill a Bird of Paradise as a mouse, when the interests 

 of science required it, and persisted like the boy whistling 

 in the dark in convincing her that I should certainly shoot 

 for her the finest specimen of a mocking bird that we could 

 find. Indeed, for the purpose of re-assuring her smiling in- 

 credulity, I went on to remind her that she had seen me per- 

 form miracles with the rifle she had known me even to 

 place six bullets in successive shots upon the space of my 

 thumb nail which I thrust forward to show her was not a 

 very large one ! " Oh yes !" she knew I was " a good rifle 

 shot a wonderful rifle shot, if I insisted upon it but shoot- 

 ing at buffalo, deer, or even Camanches, was not, strictly 

 speaking, shooting at mocking birds !" 



" Nonsense ! If a man knows how to hit one thing, he 

 knows how to hit another 1" 



I felt somehow funny, I must confess, at this persistent du- 

 biousness. It could not be that she thought that because I 

 had become accustomed to shooting at large objects, that 

 therefore I should miss the small ones as a matter of course. 

 What could the woman be driving at ? why, I could shoot 

 a bird on the wing a great deal easier with the shot-gun, than 

 a deer on the run with the rifle, which requires you, in order 

 to bring him down, to place a single ball in a much smaller 

 space than even the snipe would cover with its wing on its 

 flight. She cannot mean that I am not a good marksman, 

 for that she knows I am ! 



Hah ! there is a mocking bird, well known in all this re- 

 gion as a magnificent singer. See him bounding up from 

 the top of that pear tree inside the garden. The people will 

 all curse me, I know, for slaying the angel of song in their 

 neighborhood ; but then I hope to make peace with them in 



