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A swamp sparrow may show by its actions that its nest is not far away; from the depths of a ditch jungle the clatter of some rail comes faintly to our ears, and the distant croak of a night heron reaches us from its feeding-grounds, guarded by the deeper waters. And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky!
"It is almost too terrible to talk about," she continued after a minute. "You see, for one thing, food isn't as plentiful as it is in the fall, and we just have to go wherever it is to be found. Those two-legged creatures know where those feeding-grounds are just as well as we do, and they hide there with their terrible guns just as they did when we were coming south.
Then he took to hunting with tremendous energy, a plan which was highly approved of by his canine companion. He also devoted himself to his specific duties as swine-herd; collected the animals from all quarters into several large herds, counted them as well as he could, and drove them to suitable feeding-grounds.
One of the most important is on Bird Island, a mile out in Orange Lake, central Florida, and it is ably defended by Oscar E. Baynard. To-day, the plume hunters who do not dare to raid the guarded rookeries are trying to study out the lines of flight of the birds, to and from their feeding-grounds, and shoot them in transit. Their motto is "Anything to beat the law, and get the plumes."
The ducks, too, still resort to our rivermouth, in spite of the railroads and the tall chimneys by which their old feeding-grounds are surrounded.
The timid little field-buntings glide away on silent wing through the grass; the meadow-larks rise with gentle flappings and sail off with that easy flight so tempting to very young wing-shots; now and then a flock of doves whistle off too far for a certain shot, and clouds of crow-blackbirds rise with hoarse chirps and seek less public feeding-grounds; a rabbit dashes off from a brier-patch and both dogs rush pell-mell at his heels, but a single note from the whistle brings them to a sudden halt and makes them look thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
This shows a complete misapprehension not only of the feeding-grounds of the western emigration, but of the routes it followed, and of the conditions of the southern States. South Carolina furnished very few emigrants to Kentucky, and Georgia practically none; combined they probably did not furnish as many as New Jersey or Maryland.
Towards morning, the sound of their departure to their feeding-grounds resembled thunder. For nearly two hours there was one incessant roar, as flock after flock took its departure eastward. The ground under the trees was whitened with their excrement, and strewn with broken branches of trees. The Americans have a plan of capturing these birds, by means of a decoy, or stool-pigeon, and nets.
Of nothing like the wanton and shameful destruction dealt by the whites since the feeding-grounds were made accessible by rail was he ever guilty. He managed his hunts systematically, placed them under the rigid control of a sort of guild known as "dog-soldiers," and allowed to be slain only what were needed for his wants.
This live-oak forest, which covers several thousand acres, is densely filled with scrub palmetto, impenetrable almost, and so difficult to pierce that the deer with which the forest swarms choose the old paths and roadways in their walks from sleeping- to feeding-grounds.
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