THE WILD TURKEY. 31 
miles from my companion’s house, and entered a charm- 
ingly romantic piece of woods, in which the orange, pal- 
metto, and magnolia trees were intermingled with the 
gloomy pine and the graceful, feathery cedar. Brilliant 
vines or long festoons of funereal moss draped each forest 
giant, while gaudy flowers and rich-hued shrubbery 
formed parterres in every direction. Our walk dis- 
turbed numerous paroquets and humming-birds, which 
went flitting through the trees like so many rays of rich, 
bright colors, and roused the crane and heron—whose 
whooping cries resounded throughout the silent woods— 
and sent them sailing high into the air. 
The scene was so enchanting to me that I did not care 
if I never met a turkey there, for it seemed out of place 
to kill any creature in such a lovely locality. Even my 
companion, who had turkey on the brain that morning, 
relapsed into silence when we entered the forest, and 
evidently drank in its beauties anew, much as he was 
used to them. He did not lose sight of the object of 
our journey, however, for he carefully scanned the ground 
at intervals in search of ‘‘ signs,” and peered earnestly 
into trees to see if he could not rest his longing eyes on 
a plump gobbler. He was unsuccessful in detecting 
either signs or birds, and this caused him to indulge in 
a few expletives at turkeys in general, and at our ill-luck 
in particular. While passing through a dense piece of 
undergrowth, where we could not see thirty paces ahead, 
we were startled by hearing the heavy tread of some ani- 
mal on the dead leaves, and the rapid crashing of branch- 
lets. This unexpected sound caused us to look at each 
other in silence for a moment or two, as if to inquire, 
What can produce that noise? J was the first to find 
the use of my tongue, and I asked him—because I sup- 
posed he ought to know everything about the neighbor- 
hood— 
“What is that?” 
