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LETTERS FEOJI ALABAMA. 
LETTER XVIIT. 
December 20tb. 
We have nothing like winter yet. The weather 
resembles what you have in Canada in September ; ' 
the trees have lost their gay autumnal tints, and 
have put on a sober russet hue, but in general they 
still w^ear their foliage. The seedlings are still 
fresh and green, and, in the swamps, the magnolias, 
the water-oak, the holly, and the palmetto are as 
verdant as in summer. Herbs and weeds still fill 
the angles of the fences, and the fields of autumn- 
sown rye are clothed in a flush of tender green, 
like that of a meadow in June. Some few flowers 
still linger, and on sunny days butterflies and other 
insects flutter in the beam. 
In the course of a ride to Selma, a little town a 
few miles distant, 1 had the pleasure of seeiug a 
flock of Parrots (Psittacus Carolinensisy The bird 
is not at all common in these parts, and indeed it 
was the first occasion on which I had ever seen one 
of this beautiful tribe in a state of wild nature. 
There were eighty or a hundred in one compact 
flock, and as they swept past me, screaming as 
they went, I fancied that they looked like an 
immense shawl of green satin, on which an irre- 
gular pattern was worked in scarlet and gold and 
azure. The sun’s rays were brilliantly reflected 
