144 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
our party, and returned to Indian Key, where we arrived 
three hours before sunset 
The sailors and other individuals to whom my name and 
pursuits had become known, carried our birds to the pilot’s 
house. His good wife had a room ready for me to draw in, 
and my assistant might have been seen busily engaged in 
skinning, while George Lehman was making a sketch of the 
lovely isle. 
Time is ever precious to the student of nature. I placed 
several birds in their natural attitudes, and began to outline 
them. A dance had been prepared also, and no sooner was 
the sun lost to our eye, than males and females, including 
our captain and others from the vessel, were seen advancing 
gaily towards the house in full apparel. The birds were 
skinned, the sketch was on paper, and I told my young men 
to amuse themselves. As to myself, I could not join in the 
merriment, for, full of the remembrance of you, reader, and 
of the patrons of my work both in America and in Europe, I 
went on “ grinding’”—not on an organ, like the Lady of Bras 
d’Or, but on paper, to the finishing, not merely of my out- 
lines, but of my notes respecting the objects seen this day. 
The room adjoining that in which I worked, was soon filled. 
Two miserable fiddlers screwed their screeching silken strings 
—not an inch of catgut graced their instruments; and the 
bouncing of brave lads and fair lasses shook the premises to 
the foundation. One with a slip came down heavily on the 
floor, and the burst of laughter that followed echoed over the 
isle. Diluted claret was handed round to cool the ladies, 
while a beverage of more potent energies warmed their part- 
ners. After supper our captain returned to the Marion, and 
I, with my young men, slept in light swinging hammocks, 
under the eaves of the piazza. 
It was the end of April, when the nights were short and 
the days therefore long. Anxious to turn every moment to 
account, we were on board Mr. Thruston’s boat at three next 
