Not far beyond my halting-place of two days before I came to a Cherokee rosebush, one of the most beautiful of plants,—­white, fragrant, single roses (real roses) set in the midst of the handsomest of glossy green leaves.  I was delighted to find it still in flower.  A hundred miles farther south I had seen it finishing its season a full month earlier.  I stopped, of course, to pluck a blossom.  At that moment a female redbird flew out of the bush.  Her mate was beside her instantly, and a nameless something in their manner told me they were trying to keep a secret.  The nest, built mainly of pine needles and other leaves, was in the middle of the bush, a foot or two from the grass, and contained two bluish or greenish eggs thickly spattered with dark brown.  I meant to look into it again (the owners seemed to have no great objection), but somehow missed it every time I passed.  From that point, as far as I went, the road was lined with Cherokee roses,—­not continuously, but with short intermissions; and from the number of redbirds seen, almost invariably in pairs, I feel safe in saying that the nest I had found was probably one of fifteen or twenty scattered along the wayside.  How gloriously the birds sang!  It was their day for singing.  I was ready to christen the road anew,—­Redbird Road.

But the redbirds, many and conspicuous as they were, had no monopoly of the road or of the day.  House wrens were equally numerous and equally at home, though they sang more out of sight.  Red-eyed chewinks, still far from their native berry pastures, hopped into a bush to cry, “Who’s he?” at the passing of a stranger, in whom, for aught I know, they may have half recognized an old acquaintance.  A bunch of quails ran across the road a little in front of me, and in another place fifteen or twenty red-winged blackbirds (not a red wing among them) sat gossiping in a treetop.  Elsewhere, even later than this (it was now April 7), I saw flocks, every bird of which wore shoulder-straps,—­like the traditional militia company, all officers. They did not gossip, of course (it is the male that sports the red), but they made a lively noise.

As for the mocking-birds, they were at the front here, as they were everywhere.  During my fortnight in Tallahassee there were never many consecutive five minutes of daylight in which, if I stopped to listen, I could not hear at least one mocker.  Oftener two or three were singing at once in as many different directions.  And, speaking of them, I must speak also of their more northern cousin.  From the day I entered Florida I had been saying that the mocking-bird, save for his occasional mimicry of other birds, sang so exactly like the thrasher that I did not believe I could tell one from the other.  Now, however, on this St. Augustine road, I suddenly became aware of a bird singing somewhere in advance, and as I listened again I said aloud, with full persuasion, “There! that’s a thrasher!” There was a something