he ground. Peanuts, I guessed; but
to make sure I called to a colored woman who was hoeing not far off.
"What are these?" "Pinders," she answered. I knew she meant
peanuts,--otherwise "ground-peas" and "goobers,"--and now that I once
more have a dictionary at my elbow I learn that the word, like "goober,"
is, or is supposed to be, of African origin.

I was preparing to surmount the barbed-wire fence again, when the
planter returned and halted for another chat. It was evident that he
took a genuine and amiable interest in my researches. There were a great
many kinds of sparrows in that country, he said, and also of
woodpeckers. He knew the ivory-bill, but, like other Tallahasseans, he
thought I should have to go into Lafayette County (all Florida people
say La_fay_ette) to find it. "That bird calling now is a bee-bird," he
said, referring to a kingbird; "and we have a bird that is called the
French mocking-bird; he catches other birds." The last remark was of
interest for its bearing upon a point about which I had felt some
curiosity, and, I may say, some skepticism, as I had seen many
loggerhead shrikes, but had observed no indication that other birds
feared them or held any grudge against them. As he rode off he called my
attention to a great blue heron just then flying over the swamp. "They
are very shy," he said. Then, from further away, he shouted once more to
ask if I heard the mocking-bird singing yonder, pointing with his whip
in the direction of the singer.

For some time longer I hung about the glade, vainly hoping that the
grosbeak would again favor my eyes. Then I crossed more planted
fields,--climbing more barbed-wire fences, and stopping on the way to
enjoy the sweetly quaint music of a little chorus of white-crowned
sparrows,--and skirted once more the muddy shore of the cane-swamp,
where the yellowlegs and sandpipers were still feeding. That brought me
to the road from which I had made my entry to the place some days
before; but, being still unable to forego a splendid possibility, I
recrossed the plantation, tarried again in the glade, sat again on the
wooden fence (if that grosbeak only _would_ show himself!), and thence
went on, picking a few heads of handsome buffalo clover, the first I had
ever seen, and some sprays of penstemon, till I came again to the
six-barred gate and the Quincy road. At that point, as I now remember,
the air was full of vultures (carrion crows), a hundred or more, soaring
ov