LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
47 
bread. Such is the force of habit in modifying or 
creating tastes. I have somewhere read of a gentle- 
man who had been brought up on the sea-coast of 
Scotland, where a species of seaweed is commonly 
eaten ; and such was the taste which he had acquired 
for it, that in after-life, when residing far away, he 
was in the habit of procuring this weed to be trans- 
mitted to him, from a great distance, as an indis- 
pensable article of his diet. 
The little negro-boy, who has a bunch of pea- 
cock’s feathers in his hand, which he continually 
waves over the food, and over every part of the 
table, is appointed to keep off the flies, as these 
insects are so numerous here that they would other- 
wise settle on the food and spoil it. But I beg 
your pardon ; while I am talking, you are eating 
nothing. Be bold ; though strange, you’ll find it 
all good. For drink, here is coffee, new milk, 
sour milk, and buttermilk, — the last two are great 
favourites, but I dare say you, like myself, will 
decline them both : the sour milk is thick, and 
eaten with -a spoon, so that perhaps I was wrong 
in calling it drink. Tea is almost unknown ; coffee 
is the staple for morning and evening meals. 
Here, too, is honey, fresh taken from the “ gum,” 
and here are various kinds of preserves.” 
No more? I fear novelty has taken away your 
appetite ; but, however, if you have really done, 
we will be going. I will just get my butterfly net 
and be with you ; I always carry it. 
Yonder is the chief of our feathered songsters, 
the leader of the American orchestra, — the far- 
famed Mocking-bird {Turdus polyglottus). He is 
hopping about the rails of the fence, playing at 
bopeep, sometimes on this side, sometimes on the 
