er the fields in some fit of gregariousness. Along the road were
white-crowned and white-throated sparrows (it was the 12th of April),
orchard orioles, thrashers, summer tanagers, myrtle and paim warblers,
cardinal grosbeaks, mocking-birds, kingbirds, logger-heads,
yellow--throated vireos, and sundry others, but not the blue grosbeak,
which would have been worth them all.

Once back at the hotel, I opened my Coues's Key to refresh my memory as
to the exact appearance of that bird. "Feathers around base of bill
black," said the book. I had not noticed that. But no matter; the bird
was a blue grosbeak, for the sufficient reason that it could not be
anything else. A black line between the almost black beak and the
dark-blue head would be inconspicuous at the best, and quite naturally
would escape a glimpse so hasty as mine had been. And yet, while I
reasoned in this way, I foresaw plainly enough that, as time passed,
doubt would get the better of assurance, as it always does, and I should
never be certain that I had not been the victim of some illusion. At
best, the evidence was worth nothing for others. If only that excellent
Mr. ----, for whose kindness I was unfeignedly thankful (and whose
pardon I most sincerely beg if I seem to have been a bit too free in
this rehearsal of the story),--if only Mr. ---- could have left me alone
for ten minutes longer!

The worry and the imprecations were wasted, after all, as, Heaven be
thanked, they so often are; for within two or three days I saw other
blue grosbeaks and heard them sing. But that was not on a cotton
plantation, and is part of another story.

A FLORIDA SHRINE.

All pilgrims to Tallahassee visit the Murat place. It is one of the most
conveniently accessible of those "points of interest" with which
guide-books so anxiously, and with so much propriety, concern
themselves. What a tourist prays for is something to see. If I had ever
been a tourist in Boston, no doubt I should before now have surveyed the
world from the top of the Bunker Hill monument. In Tallahassee, at all
events, I went to the Murat estate. In fact, I went more than once; but
I remember especially my first visit, which had a livelier sentimental
interest than the others because I was then under the agreeable delusion
that the Prince himself had lived there. The guide-book told me so,
vouchsafing also the information that after building the house he
"interested himself actively in local affair