1885.] 
light of an engine fifteen miles away, 
like a low star that you wonder does not 
rise. It grows slowly in size, a Sirius, 
a Venus, a moon, as though the carth 
had stopped rotating and adopted a di- 
rect motion toward the heavenly bodies. 
Karly on fine mornings the horizon gets 
tired, as it were, of being suppressed, 
and looms up in a mirage, with an out- 
fit of imaged trees and hills reflected in 
an imaginary lake,—a pictured protest 
of Nature against monotony. There 
are local depressions, nevertheless, which 
you would not believe in but for the 
shallow little ponds which fill them and 
which are indicated from a distance at 
this season by the lead-colored grass 
that veils them and conceals their glit- 
ter. And there are longer swells, be- 
gotten of drainage, sometimes of eight 
or ten feet in a mile, which deceive you, 
as you advance, into the expectation of a 
grand prospect when once you shall have 
got to the top of them. That, practi- 
eally, you never do. Arrived at what 
seems to be the crest of a ridge, you see 
nothing but more flat. The eye, in de- 
spair, gives, when you come in sight 
of it, an inclination to the water. The 
pond-surface ceases to be horizontal. 
The principle of gravitation stands con- 
tradicted point-blank. 
The most frequent vedette of these 
miniature lakes is the heron,—usually 
the blue, sometimes the larger white, 
the latter a most beautiful bird. Yet 
neither is common. Still rarer in such 
situations is the bittern, the Timon of 
birds, the rushes being seldom high 
enough to afford him the strict con- 
cealment he likes. ‘The mallard has to 
be his own sentinel, as arule. He does 
not depend on these ponds for food, and, 
like other wild creatures, he reserves his 
chief vigilance for feeding-time. They 
are places of repose, at mid-day and at 
night, for the ducks of this and two or 
three other species, notably the blue- and 
green-winged teal, which at other times 
haunt the clumps of oak and pecan that 
skirt the sparse streams and their sum- 
mer-dry affluents, where nuts and acorns 
in great variety, those of the live-oak be- 
ing very sweet, supply unfailing winter 
BIRDS OF A TEXAN WINTER. 563 
provision. The thickets of ilex that shade 
off these wooded reaches into the tree- 
less prairie are the resort of many 
partridges. You are led back into the 
open ground by another game-bird, the 
pinnated grouse, the widest ranger of 
its genus, but at the North disappearing 
only less rapidly than the buffalo. As 
yet his most destructive foe in this re- 
gion is perhaps the hawk, although he 
is raided from the timber by the opos- 
sum, raccoon, and three species of cat, 
while on the open his nest has marked 
attractions for the skunk and probably 
the coyote. He has survived these 
dumb discouragers so long, and the heat 
at his proper season is so trying to his 
human foe, that he may long find a 
refuge here and proudly lead forth his 
young Texans for scores of Augusts. 
He and his family will often quietly 
walk off while the panting pointer seeks 
the shade of the wagon and the gunner 
cools off under the heavy felt sombrero 
that is here found to be the best head- 
gear for summer. A very moderate 
game-law, well executed, would sustain 
this fine bird indefinitely in the struggle 
for existence. But law of any kind 
seems a foreign idea on these sea-like 
primeval plains. It is like thinking of 
a parliament in the Pleiocene, or of a 
court-house on the Grand Banks. 
Any transcendentalist who wishes to 
furbish up his philosophic furniture will 
find this a good workshop for the pur- 
pose. There is ample room for any 
school, positive or negative,—plenty of 
cloud-land for all coneeits. Kant could 
iave picked up pure reason among the 
crowds of simply reasoning creatures 
who have possessed the scene since long 
before the brain of man was created. 
Covies of immemorial Thoreaus bivouae 
under those hazy woods, and _ pre-glacial 
Emersons are circling overhead. The 
problem of successfully living they have 
all solved. What more have any of us 
done? The greatest good of the greatest 
number they unpresuminely display as 
a practically triumphant principle; and 
the greatest number is not by any means 
with them, any more than with us, num- 
ber one. Had it been, they would all 
