82 
LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
I was spending the day a short time ago at a 
gentleman’s plantation about half-a-dozen miles 
away, and happened to inquire if there were any 
prairies in that neighbourhood. I was told there 
was one very near, which I should find by going 
through the woods in a certain direction which was 
pointed out. I went and searched and searched, 
but no prairie could I see ; nothing but endless 
forests. I returned, supposing I had missed the 
direction. In order to describe where I had been, 
I mentioned a little knoll in the woods v/here the 
trees were not quite so close to each other, and was 
informed that was the prairie ; and then for the first 
time I learned the existence of forest prairie, which 
I should have thought somewhat of a misnomer. 
I believe the soil distinguishes the prairie ; certainly 
I observed no outward difference between it and 
the other forest except that, as I have already said, 
the timber was rather less dense : none of the herba- 
ceous plants and flowers that beautify the open 
prairie were to be seen. Very few flowers indeed 
grow in the depth of the forest in any circum- 
stances ; grandeur and gloom, not beauty, are the 
characteristics of these primeval shades. 
Two birds have fixed upon the immediate vicinit}"^ 
of our house, as the scene of their domestic economy. 
One is the Gold- winged Woodpecker [Picus aura- 
tus), which has excavated a deep and commodious 
chamber in the blighted and decaying trunk of a 
girdled pine in the peach-orchard. One of the 
boys had discovered it, and in the dusk of the 
evening we went out to reconnoitre. He offered to 
show me the young ones, which I was desirous to 
see. We got a ladder (for the entrance w^as several 
yards high), and he mounted, having first thrown 
