108 FLORIDA 



gray gnatcatchers (a host), white-eyed vireos 

 (another host), solitary vireos, chewinks, painted 

 buntings, phoebes, crested flycatchers, and blue 

 jays. What a chorus there would be if the spring 

 should get into all their throats at once ! Might 

 I be here to listen ! Then, indeed, I could make 

 a list, with the hearing to help the eyesight. Now 

 I follow the road, and find only such birds as 

 happen to be near it at the moment when I pass. 

 Then it would be another story. I should need 

 a stenographer. The names would crowd upon 

 the pencil. 



It is really an astonishing, unnatural-seeming 

 thing — this multitude of birds, in this cloudless 

 summer weather, with mating-time so close at 

 hand, and no impulse to sing. Yet that expres- 

 sion is a trifle too strong, or at least too sweeping. 

 This forenoon I heard a gnatcatcher warbling 

 softly, as if to himself, tuning his instrument, it 

 may be, or, more likely, dreaming. The cardi- 

 nals, too, are certainly growing amorous. I see 

 the bright males quarreling among themselves 

 here and there (they are constantly in the road), 

 and not infrequently, as I have said, they whistle 

 with all sweetness. At that work there is no 

 bird to excel them. How any female heart can 

 resist such appeals is more than any bachelor's 

 heart can imagine. I rejoice in their numbers. 



