560 
One morning last winter I was speed- 
ing eastward to the Crescent City, the 
freshest of my memories a struggle at 
Houston with one of those breakfasts 
which so atrociously distinguish the 
reign of the magnate who is said to sup- 
ply under contract all the meals of the 
Southern railway-restaurants, and who, 
“if ever fondest prayer for others’ woe 
avail on high,” will certainly be booked, 
with the vote of some of his victims, 
for a post-mundane berth a good deal 
warmer than his coffee and more sul- 
phurous than his eggs. Afar off to the 
right the sun was rounding up from the 
Gulf and clearing the haze from his 
broad, red face, the better to look abroad 
over the glistening prairie and see if the 
silhouetted pines and cattle were where 
he had left them the day before. Glan- 
cing to the left, which was my side of 
the car, I became aware of a large bird 
suspended in the air, not motionless, for 
his wings were doing their best, but to 
all appearance as stationary as the scat- 
tered trees and cattle, and about fifteen 
yards distant. Every feature and mark- 
ing of the “chicken,” or pinnated grouse, 
was as distinct to the eye as though, in- 
stead of making thirty-two miles an 
hour, he were posing for his photo- 
graph. For full two hundred yards he 
sustained the race, until, finding that his 
competitor had the better wind, he gave 
it up and shot suddenly into the sedge. 
How much longer the match had lasted 
I could not say. He must have got up 
near the engine—of course losing some 
time in the act of rising—and fallen back 
gradually to my place, which was in a 
rear car. But when a schedule for-birds 
comes to be framed, it is safe to set 
down Zetrao cupido at about the speed 
above named. Timed from a rail-car, 
that is; for, looked at over a gun, he 
seems to move five times as fast. The 
double-barrel is a powerful binocular. 
Steam, then, soon carries us to the re- 
sort of the lost truants, who have tray- 
elled with the lines of longitude by 
guides and tracks over that invisible 
road as unerring as those of the rail- 
way. We shall find them in close com- 
panionship with friends unknown in our 
BIRDS OF A TEXAN WINTER. 
[Derc. 
latitude, whose abiding-places are at the 
South, as those left behind are fixed 
dwellers at the North. 
From the window at which I sit on 
this morning late in January and this 
parallel of thirty degrees,—window open, 
as well as the door, for no norther is on 
duty to-day,—I see flocks of our familiar 
redwings, cowbirds, and blackbirds, all 
mingled together as though the hard and 
fast lines of species had been obliterated 
and made as meaningless as the conceded- 
ly evanescent shades of variety, trooping 
busily over the lawn and blackening 
the leafless China-trees. But they have 
a crony never seen by us. ‘This is the 
crow-blackbird of the South, or jackdaw 
as lt is wrongly called, otherwise known 
as the boat-tailed grackle, from his over- 
allowance of rudder that pulls him side- 
wise and ruins his dead-reckoning when a 
wind is on. His wife is a sober-looking 
lady in a suit of steel-gray, and the pair 
are quite conspicuous among their win- 
ter guests. The latter are far less shy 
than we are accustomed to find them, a 
majority being young in their first sea- 
son and with little or no experience of 
human guile. No one cares to sheot 
them, in the abundance of larger game, 
and the absence of stones from the fat 
prairie-soil places them out of danger 
from the small boy. Their only foe is 
the hawk, who levies blackmail on them as 
coolly and regularly as any other plumed 
cateran. Partly, perhaps, by reason of 
this outside pressure, they are cheek by 
jowl with the poultry,—the cow-bunting, 
which is the pet prey of the hawk, fol- 
lowing them into the back porch and in- 
sisting sometimes on breakfasting with 
Tray,—or rather with Legion, for that is 
the name of the Texas dog. In this 
familiarity they are approached, though 
not equalled, by that more home-staying 
bird the meadow-lark, who is here a 
dweller of the lawn and garden and 
adds his mellow whistle to the orchestra 
of the mocking-bird. This so-called 
lark is classed by most naturalists among 
the starlings, as are two of the black- 
birds, which two he resembles in some 
of his habits, but not in migrating, be- 
ing about as much of a continental as 
