sed with the fear of man, will hardly trouble himself to move out
of the way. March in this region corresponding to May in the Middle
States, the birds were in full spring song in every thicket,--the
cardinal, the nonpareil, the mocking-bird, and our old familiar robin,
whose cheerful note greets the traveller all over North America. Up and
down the great pine trunks ran the red and gray squirrels, the little
brown hare scudded through the palmetto scrub, and the turkey-buzzards
floated above our heads in long easy circles.

So we fared on our way till about four P.M., when we made our camp on a
clear branch or creek which issued from a lake near by, and while some
of the party went to look for a deer, Captain Herbert and I took our
rods and went up the creek towards the lake. Casting our spoons into a
deep hole, we soon took a mess of bass and pike, which were very
abundant and eager to be caught, when, as we were preparing to return to
camp, we suddenly saw an alligator about eight feet long quietly
stealing towards us. I seized a young pine-tree about as thick as my
arm, and made for him. Not at all alarmed, the beast opened his jaws and
advanced, hissing loudly. I brought down my club with full force upon
his head, but it seemed to produce no impression; he still advanced as
I retreated battering his skull.

"What is that brute's head made of?" inquired Herbert, as he came to my
assistance with another club; and between us we managed to stun the
hard-lived reptile, and left him on the ground.

The hunters brought in a young buck and two turkeys, so that we had a
plentiful supper after our tramp....

About two o'clock that night we were disturbed by the mules, which had
been staked out to graze hard by, and which retreated towards the camp
to the end of their ropes, snorting with terror. The dogs rushed to the
scene of disturbance, and appeared to have a fight with some animal
which escaped in the woods. Our guides thought it was a panther, and at
daylight they started, with Morris and myself and all the dogs, to hunt
for it. The hounds soon hit the trail, which we followed into a cypress
swamp about half a mile from the camp, in the midst of which they
started a large panther, which, being hotly pressed by the hounds, treed
in a big live-oak on the farther side of the swamp. When we came up we
plainly saw the beast lying out on a branch which stretched horizontally
from the trunk about twenty-five feet from the g