154 A NATURE WOOING. 



times find it worthless lacking honor, and especially 

 lacking happiness. "We are never happy; we only 

 know that we were so once." 



As I come out of the narrow path, which leads 

 through the mazes of saw palmetto at the point where 

 I crossed the peninsula, and get my first glimpse of 

 the ocean, I see an osprey dive down, struggle in the 

 water an instant, then rise triumphantly upward with 

 a large fish in his talons. Far inland he flies, bearing 

 his prey to his mate on her nest, or perhaps to some 

 eyrie on tall dead tree where he can devour it in soli- 

 tude unmolested by eagle or other enemy. 



Over the mainland I note the "Bird of Freedom," 

 a magnificent bald eagle, slowly soaring. The sun- 

 light glints from his white head and tail. He has 

 evidently been on the watch for the 

 fish hawk, but has missed him. A 

 robber baron he, who gets his living 

 mainly by preying upon his weaker 

 brethren, seldom by honest bird labor. 

 The pathway has, in places, been cut 

 through the sand ridges of the penin- 

 sula and a board walk put down. Be- 

 n eath one of the loose boards of this 



subsulcatus Sajr. 



walk I find a small whip scorpion or 

 vinegerone, its jointed telson turned up over its back. 

 Two feet from it are four specimens of a medium 

 sized carabid beetle, Pasimachus subsulcatus Say. 

 It is shining black and four-fifths of an inch in 



