108 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
course protesting that they are out of it now, — as one would 
of mercantile or any other business. The old man said there 
was no other way, after the war, to support his family. These 
haunts of the moonshiners and the mounds of the aborigines 
scattered about, recalled to us many of Craddock's characters. 
We thought of the graves of the ''Stranger People" and could 
almost distinguish 'beetle Moses' " voice among the bird 
voices. 
The rich, full notes of the summer red-bird, the wood- 
thrush and the Kentucky cardinal, or cardinal grosbeak and 
the ever-present mocking wren, filled the woods with melody, 
while the call of the partridge sounded along the roadsides. 
The mocking-bird, that ''trim Shakespeare of the trees" was 
heard, his interesting relative, the brown Thrasher, was here, 
too. He would cease to sing as we stopped to listen, and then, 
as we kept quiet, he began again, low and sweet; so low and 
clear, we could almost imagine, if we did not see the bird half- 
hidden by the leaves, that he was at least a quarter of a mile 
away. He was a veritable ventriloquist, and was trying to 
deceive us as to his distance from us. Finally growing bolder 
he would pour forth a rich melody unequalled by any South- 
em songster save the mocking bird. We heard many stories 
of the number of "rattlers" and copperheads to be seen here, 
till pictures of Elsie Venner's cave passed before us, but we 
saw none in our rambles. 
In the State report, this part of the country is thus 
described: "All its water-courses, even the smallest, wet- 
weather brooks and spring branches, take their rise between a 
series of steep cliffs, which form an elevated water-shed be- 
tween Bear Creek and Nolin River, running in parallel courses, 
for five or ten miles apart, for a distance of twenty miles. 
This water shed is intersected on either side by deep, high- 
walled ravines whence gush forth cool springs, which either 
