irds) over the St. Mark's River, and counted the sight
one of the chief rewards of my Southern winter.

At noon we rested and ate our luncheon in the shade of three or four
tall palmetto-trees standing by themselves on a broad prairie, a place
brightened by beds of blue iris and stretches of golden
senecio,--homelike as well as pretty, both of them. Then we set out
again. The day was intensely hot (March 24), and my oarsman was more
than half sick with a sudden cold. I begged him to take things easily,
but he soon experienced an almost miraculous renewal of his forces. In
one of the first of our after-dinner bonnet patches, he seized his gun,
fired, and began to shout, "A purple! a purple!" He drew the bird in, as
proud as a prince. "There, sir!" he said; "didn't I tell you it was
handsome? It has every color there is." And indeed it was handsome,
worthy to be called the "Sultana;" with the most exquisite iridescent
bluish-purple plumage, the legs yellow, or greenish-yellow (a point by
which it may be distinguished from the Florida gallinule, as the bird
flies from you), the bill red tipped with pale green, and the shield (on
the forehead, like a continuation of the upper mandible) light blue, of
a peculiar shade, "just as if it had been painted." From that moment the
boy was a new creature. Again and again he spoke of his altered
feelings. He could pull the boat now anywhere I wanted to go. He was
perfectly fresh, he declared, although I thought he had already done a
pretty good day's work under that scorching sun. I had not imagined how
deeply his heart was set upon showing me the bird I was after. It made
me twice as glad to see it, dead though it was.

Within an hour, on our way homeward, we came upon another. It sprang out
of the lily pads, and sped toward the tall grass of the shore. "Look!
look! a purple!" the boy cried. "See his yellow legs!" Instinctively he
raised his gun, but I said No. It would be inexcusable to shoot a second
one; and besides, we were at that moment approaching a bird about which
I felt a stronger curiosity,--a snake-bird, or water-turkey, sitting in
a willow shrub at the further end of the bay. "Pull me as near it as it
will let us come," I said. "I want to see as much of it as possible." At
every rod or two I stopped the boat and put up my glasses, till we were
within perhaps sixty feet of the bird. Then it took wing, but instead of
flying away went sweeping about us. On getting round to