AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
137 
spectability, who have resided in the islands of Jamaica, 
Cuba, and the Bahamas and Bermudas, that this very bird 
is common there in winter. We also find, from the works 
of Hernandes Piso and others, that it is well known in 
Mexico, Guiana, and Brazil ; and if so, the place of its win- 
ter retreat is easily ascertained, without having recourse to 
all the trumpery of holes and caverns, torpidity, hyberna- 
tion, and such ridiculous improbabilities. 
Nothing is more common in Pennsylvania than to see 
large flocks of these birds in spring and fall, passing, at con- 
siderable heights in the air; from the south in the former, 
and from the north in the latter season. I have seen, in the 
month of October, about an hour after sun-rise, ten or fif- 
teen of them descend from a great height and settle on the 
top of a tall detached tree, appearing, from their silence 
and sedateness, to be strangers, and fatigued. After a pause 
of a few minutes they began to dress and arrange their plu- 
mage, y and continued so employed for ten or fifteen minutes 
more; then, on a few warning' notes being given, perhaps 
by the leader of the party, the whole remounted to a vast 
height, steering in a direct line for the south-west. In pass- 
ing along the chain of the Bahamas towards the West In- 
dies, no great difficulty can occur from the frequency of 
these islands; nor even to the Bermudas, which are said to 
be 600 miles from the nearest part of the continent. This 
may seem an extraordinary flight for so small a bird ; but it 
is nevertheless a fact that it is performed. If we suppose 
the Blue-bird in this case to fly only at the rate of a mile 
per minute, which is less than I have actually ascertained 
him to do over land, ten or eleven hours would be sufficient 
to accomplish the journey; besides the chances he would 
have of resting places by the way, from the number of ves- 
sels that generally navigate those seas. In like manner two 
days at most, allowing for numerous stages for rest, would 
conduct him from the remotest regions of Mexico to any 
part of the Atlantic States. When the natural history of that 
part of the continent and its adjacent isles, are better known, 
and the periods at which its birds of passage arrive and de- 
part, are truly ascertained, I have no doubt but these sup- 
positions will be fully corroborated. 
ENCOUNTER WITH A PANTHER. 
There is no subject on which the mind dwells with so 
much interest and intensity of thought, as the retrospect 
of past life — to call to remembrance the scenes of early 
youth — that period of existence which was spent in scenes 
of gaiety and pleasure — exploits, replete with danger — ex- 
cursions, pregnant with difficulties and hairbreadth escapes 
M m 
— these fill the mind with a train of thought inexpressibly 
interesting; and they become tenfold more delightful by 
the lapse of riper years. To the mind of him whose youth- 
ful days have been passed in the lonely wilds of a newly 
settled country, where every day’s experience gave rise to 
some new event ; and ingenuity and prowess were often 
necessarily placed in competition with the ferocity of savage 
animals, it is a source of contemplation, embodying in itself 
