Let us go back to the beach and stroll along the shell road, which parallels the shore all the way from Gulfport to Biloxi. Perhaps the glare of the white road is not pleasant to the eyes, but the deep green of live oak and long leafed pine is restful, the mingled fragrance of the salt breeze of the gulf, the resiny odor of the pine and the blossoming wisteria charm the senses and lull us into rapturous content. Only a few of the trees and shrubs which border the highway are of the kinds familiar to observers in Ohio and Illinois. Now and then a water oak or a sweet gum appears; but otherwise in the cypress, pine or live oak of the larger growth, or in the palmetto, Spanish dagger and rattan vine of the undergrowth, the eye looks in vain for old acquaintances. The live oak certainly has individuality. Shorter and more spreading in its habit of growth than most of its kind, its limbs are gnarled and knotty, strong and muscular with its wrestling with the hurricanes that sweep the bosom of the gulf. It loves the white sand just a few feet above high tide, where it stands as a protector for the weaker growth between the tossing waters and the great pine forest. As is the case with human beings, this vigorous conflict with its surroundings does it good; for no place in the South that I have been have I found the live oaks as plentiful or as vigorous as on this strip of barren sand. The birds know a good thing when they see it; hence they are well represented here at this season of the year. Our old acquaintance of the Maumee Valley, the Maryland yellow throat, with his cunning black mask and his cheerful if not wholly musical “Wichety, wichety, wichety,” greets us from a perch on a rattan vine, but on our nearer approach dives down into the palmettos, where only the noise made by his tiny feet indicates his whereabouts. Two other warblers, the hooded and the redstart, a little belated, perhaps, have stopped here on their way north to the old nesting grounds on the Kankakee and the Hudson. The most numerous as well as the most conspicuous element of the bird population is the summer tanager, whose intensely scarlet coat adds a touch of vivid color very grateful to the eye. Nearly every oak contains one of these redcoats, whistling a solo for our benefit or discussing the details of housekeeping with his more sober coated little wife. Almost as numerous as the tanagers, and even more interesting, are the orchard orioles. Their song has more of the fire and ring of true music, a compensation probably for the comparative dullness of their garb. In nest building the orchard oriole is an artist. I remember one day finding in a small water oak a nest so carefully woven out of excelsior as to make me think the bird could knit if he would only turn his talent in that direction. Where twine and excelsior are not easily obtained, no doubt they utilize the long streamers of Spanish moss which hang from half the trees in the gulf country.