6 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



season and fallen to the ground, or a russet persimmon or a 

 choice pecan-nut shaken down by last night's wind. Their leader 

 casts his eye from side to side, scanning everything that moves. 

 Now a caressing love-note is uttered to his favourite hen ; then, 

 drawing himself to his full height, he gives a glance of scrutiny 

 into the woods ahead of him, where the slim pine-trees open an 

 extended vision. Passing a rotten stump, with a stroke of his 

 leg and claws he tears down the rotten bark. A half inclination 

 of the head defers to the nearest hen a curd-white grub that has 

 rolled out from the wood, and with a low cluck of acknowledg- 

 ment she picks it up. Now with one foot half raised, he searches 

 for the cause of a sudden noise. Ah ! it was only that opossum, 

 and the turkeys care little for him when they are in a flock 

 together, and now in passing he leaps up and catches a beetle that 

 was crawling in a bush above him, now a may-apple, then a spider 

 or plethoric tadpole stranded in the hollow of the receding waters, 

 are all appropriated. At length they reach the banks of a river ; 

 there is a little hurry among the young hens. They don't like 

 large streams : there are alligators and garfish in the water, and 

 wild-cats and eagles prowling around the banks, yet the river is to 

 be crossed, and they are not half so good at flying as they are at 

 running. Indeed they would walk round the head of it, had they 

 not learned that all Florida rivers connect, in some way, one with 

 another. As it is, they walk up and down a little while on the 

 high bank, clucking and purring, with an occasional pick at some 

 misplaced feather, just as an old lady smooths down her apron 

 before expressing any decided opinion. The cock may occasion- 

 ally spread his fan if the sun shines brightly where he stands, and 

 utter his loud thrumming sounds like the roll of a drum. He has 

 eyed for some minutes a low-limbed juniper-tree, standing near, 

 and presently, after much examination, flits into it Up go the 

 hens in succession, and from the juniper they all fly to the upper 

 limbs of a dead cotton-wood standing hard by. There is a con- 

 tinuation of the duckings and notes of preparation, and then with 

 the gobbler in the van, they launch themselves out in the air, and 

 with broad extended pinions float in a slanting direction across the 

 river, landing on the opposite side, at the edge of the underbrush, 



