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196 <div class="figcenter p6"> <ANTIMG src="images/i014a.jpg" width-obs="550" height-obs="364" alt="May in Florida" /></div> <h2>MAY IN FLORIDA.</h2> Mandarin, May 28, 1872. <ANTIMG src="images/dct.jpg" alt="T" width-obs="125" height-obs="123" class="floatl" /> HE month of May in Florida corresponds to July and August at the north. Strawberries, early peaches, blackberries, huckleberries, blueberries, and two species of wild plums, are the fruits of this month, and make us forget to want the departing oranges. Still, however, some of these cling to the bough; and it is astonishing how juicy and refreshing they 197 still are. The blueberries are larger and sweeter, and less given to hard seeds, than any we have ever tasted. In the way of garden-vegetables, summer squashes, string-beans, and tomatoes are fully in season. This year, for the most part, the month has been most delightful weather. With all the pomp and glory of Nature in full view; beholding in the wet, low lands red, succulent shoots, which, under the moist, fiery breath of the season, seem really to grow an inch at a time, and to shoot up as by magic; hearing bird-songs filling the air from morning to night,—we feel a sort of tropical exultation, as if great, succulent shoots of passion or poetry might spring up within us from out this growing dream-life. The birds!—who can describe their jubilees, their exultations, their never-ending, still beginning babble and jargon of sweet sounds? All day the air rings with sweet fanciful trills and 198 melodies, as if there were a thousand little vibrating bells. They iterate and reiterate one sweet sound after another; they call to one another, and answer from thicket to thicket; they pipe; they whistle; they chatter and mock at each other with airy defiance: and sometimes it seems as if the very air broke into rollicking bird-laughter. A naturalist, who, like Thoreau, has sojourned for months in the Florida forests to study and observe Nature, has told us that no true idea of the birds' plumage can be got till the hot months come on. Then the sun pours light and color, and makes feathers like steely armor. The birds love the sun: they adore him. Our own Ph&oelig;bus, when his cage is hung on the shady side of the veranda, hangs sulky and silent; but put him in the full blaze of the sun, and while the thermometer is going up to the nineties, he rackets in a perfectly crazy 199 abandon of bird babblement, singing all he ever heard before, and trying his bill at new notes, and, as a climax, ending each outburst with a purr of satisfaction like an overgrown cat. Several pairs of family mocking-birds have their nests somewhere in our orange-trees; and there is no end of amusement in watching their dainty evolutions. Sometimes, for an hour at a time, one of them, perched high and dry on a topmost twig, where he gets the full blaze of the sun, will make the air ring with so many notes and noises, that it would seem as if he were forty birds instead of one. Then, again, you will see him stealing silently about as if on some mysterious mission, perching here and there with a peculiar nervous jerk of his long tail, and a silent little lift of his wings, as if he were fanning himself. What this motion is for, we have never been able to determine. Our plantation, at present, is entirely given 200 over to the domestic affairs of the mocking-birds, dozens of whom have built their nests in the green, inaccessible fastnesses of the orange-trees, and been rearing families in security. Now, however, the young birds are to be taught to fly; and the air resounds with the bustle and chatter of the operation. Take, for example, one scene which is going on as we write. Down on the little wharf which passes through the swamp in front of our house, three or four juvenile mocking-birds are running up and down like chickens, uttering plaintive cries of distress. On either side, perched on a tall, dry, last-year's coffee-bean-stalk, sit "papa and mamma," chattering, scolding, exhorting, and coaxing. The little ones run from side to side, and say in plaintive squeaks, "I can't," "I daren't," as plain as birds can say it. There! now they spread their little wings; and—oh, joy!—they find to their delight that they do not fall: they exult in the 201 possession of a new-born sense of existence. As we look at this pantomime, graver thoughts come over us, and we think how poor, timid little souls moan, and hang back, and tremble, when the time comes to leave this nest of earth, and trust themselves to the free air of the world they were made for. As the little bird's moans and cries end in delight and rapture in finding himself in a new, glorious, free life; so, just beyond the dark step of death, will come a buoyant, exulting sense of new existence. Our life here is in intimate communion with bird-life. Their singing all day comes in bursts and snatches; and one awakes to a sort of wondering consciousness of the many airy dialects with which the blue heavens are filled. At night a whippoorwill or two, perched in the cypress-trees, make a plaintive and familiar music. When the nights are hot, and the moon bright, the mocking-birds burst into gushes of song at any hour. At midnight 202 we have risen to listen to them. Birds are as plenty about us as chickens in a barnyard; and one wonders at their incessant activity and motion, and studies what their quaint little fanciful ways may mean, half inclined to say with Cowper,— <div class="poem"> "But I, whatever powers were mine, Would cheerfully those gifts resign For such a pair of wings as thine, And such a head between 'em." </div> Speaking of birds reminds us of a little pastoral which is being enacted in the neighborhood of St. Augustine. A young man from Massachusetts, driven to seek health in a milder climate, has bought a spot of land for a nursery-garden in the neighborhood of St. Augustine. We visited his place, and found him and his mother in a neat little cottage, adorned only with grasses and flowers picked in the wild 203 woods, and living in perfect familiarity with the birds, which they have learned to call in from the neighboring forests. It has become one of the fashionable amusements in the season for strangers to drive out to this cottage and see the birds fed. At a cry from the inmates of the cottage, the blue-jays and mocking-birds will come in flocks, settle on their shoulders, eat out of their hands, or out of the hands of any one who chooses to hold food to them. When we drove out, however, the birds were mostly dispersed about their domestic affairs; this being the nesting season. Moreover, the ample supply of fresh wild berries in the woods makes them less anxious for such dry food as contented them in winter. Only one pet mocking-bird had established himself in a neighboring tree, and came at their call. Pic sat aloft, switching his long tail with a jerky air of indifference, like an enfant gâté. When raisins were thrown up, 204 he caught them once or twice; but at last, with an evident bird-yawn, declared that it was no go, and he didn't care for raisins. Ungrateful Pic! Next winter, eager and hungry, he will be grateful; and so with all the rest of them. One of the charms of May not to be forgotten is the blossoming of the great Cape jessamine that stands at the end of the veranda, which has certainly had as many as three or four hundred great, white, fragrant flowers at once. As near as possible, this is the most perfect of flowers. It is as pure as the white camellia, with the added gift of exquisite perfume. It is a camellia with a soul! Its leaves are of most brilliant varnished green; its buds are lovely; and its expanded flower is of a thick, waxen texture, and as large as a large camellia. We have sat moonlight nights at the end of the veranda, and enjoyed it. It wraps one in an atmosphere of perfume. Only one fault has this bush: it blossoms 205 only once a season; not, like the ever-springing oleander, for months. One feels a sense of hurry to enjoy and appropriate a bloom so rare, that lasts only a few weeks. Here in Florida, flowers form a large item of thought and conversation wherever one goes; and the reason of it is the transcendent beauty and variety that are here presented. We have just returned from St. Augustine, and seen some gardens where wealth and leisure have expended themselves on flowers; and in our next chapter we will tell of some of these beauties. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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