Between my feet is a single blossom of the yellow oxalis, the only flower to be seen; and very pretty it is, each petal with an orange spot at the base.

Another buzzard, another marsh hawk, another yellow butterfly, and then a smaller one, darker, almost orange.  It passes too quickly over the creek and away.  The marsh hawk comes nearer, and I see the strong yellow tinge of his plumage, especially underneath.  He will grow handsomer as he grows older.  A pity the same could not be true of men.  Behind me are sharp cries of titlarks.  From the direction of the river come frequent reports of guns.  Somebody is doing his best to be happy!  All at once I prick up my ears.  From the grass just across the creek rises the brief, hurried song of a long-billed marsh wren.  So he is in Florida, is he?  Already I have heard confused noises which I feel sure are the work of rails of some kind.  No doubt there is abundant life concealed in those acres on acres of close grass.

The heron and the kingfisher are still quiet.  Their morning hunt was successful, and for to-day Fate cannot harm them.  A buzzard, with nervous, rustling beats, goes directly above the low cedar under which I am resting.

At last, after a siesta of two hours, the heron has changed his place.  I looked up just in season to see him sweeping over the grass, into which he dropped the next instant.  The tide is falling.  The distant sand-hills are winking in the heat, but the breeze is deliciously cool, the very perfection of temperature, if a man is to sit still in the shade.  It is eleven o’clock.  I have a mile to go in the hot sun, and turn away.  But first I sweep the line once more with my glass.  Yonder to the south are two more blue herons standing in the grass.  Perhaps there are more still.  I sweep the line.  Yes, far, far away I can see four heads in a row.  Heads and necks rise above the grass.  But so far away!  Are they birds, or only posts made alive by my imagination?  I look again.  I believe I was deceived.  They are nothing but stakes.  See how in a row they stand.  I smile at myself.  Just then one of them moves, and another is pulled down suddenly into the grass.  I smile again.  “Ten great blue herons,” I say to myself.

All this has detained me, and meantime the kingfisher has taken wing and gone noisily up the creek.  The marsh hawk appears once more.  A killdeer’s sharp, rasping note—­a familiar sound in St. Augustine—­comes from I know not where.  A procession of more than twenty black vultures passes over my head.  I can see their feet drawn up under them.  My own I must use in plodding homeward.

ON THE BEACH AT DAYTONA.