"Oh, yes, sah, when we first come here to live in dese bottoms de possums and foxes and things were so thick you could hardly go out- o'-doors." A fox had come along one day right where her mother was washing, and they used to catch the chickens "dreadful." "Were there any snakes?" "Yes, sah; black snakes, moccasins, and doctors." The doctor, she said, was a powerful ugly customer; it would get right hold of your leg as you were passing along, and whip and sting you to death. I hoped I should not meet any "doctors." I asked her if they caught any rabbits. "Oh, yes, we catches dem in 'gums.' " "What are gums?" I asked. "See dat down dare? Dat's a 'gum.' " I saw a rude box-trap made of rough boards. It seems these traps, and many other things, such as beehives, and tubs, etc., are frequently made in the South from a hollow gum-tree; hence the name gum has come to have a wide application. The ducks flew quite briskly that night; I could hear the whistle of their wings as I stood upon the shore indulging myself in listening. The ear loves a good field as well as the eye, and the night is the best time to listen, to put your ear to Nature's keyhole and see what the whisperings and the preparations mean. "Dark night, that from the eye his function takes, The ear more quick of apprehension makes," says Shakespeare. I overheard some muskrats engaged in a very gentle and affectionate jabber beneath a rude pier of brush and earth upon which I was standing. The old, old story was evidently being rehearsed under there, but the occasional splashing of the ice-cold water made it seem like very chilling business; still we all know it is not. Our decoys had not been brought in, and I distinctly heard some ducks splash in among them. The sound of oar-locks in the distance next caught my ears. They were so far away that it took some time to decide whether or not they were approaching. But they finally grew more distinct,--the steady, measured beat of an oar in a wooden lock, a very pleasing sound coming over still, moonlit waters. It was an hour before the boat emerged into view and passed my post. A white, misty obscurity began to gather over the waters, and in the morning this had grown to be a dense fog. By early dawn one of my friends was again in the box, and presently his gun went bang! bang! then bang! came again from the second gun he had taken with him, and we imagined the water strewn with ducks. But he reported only one. It floated to him and was picked up, so we need not go out. In the dimness and silence we rowed up and down the shore in hopes of starting up a stray duck that might possibly decoy. We saw many objects that simulated ducks pretty well through the obscurity, but they failed to take wing on our approach. The most pleasing thing we saw was a large, rude boat, propelled by four colored oarsmen. It looked as