Florida trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive

FLORIDA TRAILS
“The road down Indian River winds always southward toward the sun”
AS SEEN FROM JACKSONVILLE TO KEY WEST AND FROM NOVEMBER TO APRIL INCLUSIVE BY WINTHROP PACKARD Author of “Wild Pastures,” “Wood Wanderings,” etc. ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS
BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY Publishers Copyright, 1910 By Small, Maynard and Company (INCORPORATED) Entered at Stationers’ Hall THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
The author wishes to express his thanks to the editors of the “Boston Evening Transcript” for permission to reprint in this volume matter originally contributed to the columns of that paper; to Mr. H. E. Hill of Fort Pierce, Florida, and to Mr. J. D. Rahner of St. Augustine, Florida, for permission to use certain photographs which so ably supplement his own; and to very many Florida people, through whose unfailing hospitality and friendly guidance he was able to see and know many things which otherwise he would have been unable to find or understand. This spirit of courtly hospitality and neighborly good will seems to be as unfailing as the Florida sunshine, and is characteristic alike of the native and the adopted citizen. It adds one more delight to the many to be found in this beautiful region.

When I left New York, I thought that I had said good-by to the smaller migrating birds for three days. My steamer’s keel was to furrow nearly a thousand miles of rough sea before it landed me in Florida, where among live-oak and palmetto, bamboo and sugar cane, I might hope to meet tiny friends that I had loved and lost a while. I rather expected flocks of migrating sea birds, and in this I was disappointed. The usual gulls whirled and cackled in our wake, kittiwakes and herring gulls, brown backs and black backs, a horde that thinned with each steamer we met, taking return tickets to port, seemingly loath to leave the fascinating region of Coney Island.
The hundreds had dwindled to almost a lone specimen before, just off Charleston, the pelicans came out to look us over. Not a duck did I see till the pelicans had approved us. Then we began to drive out scattered flocks. Perhaps the northwester that had chased us all the way had something to do with it. For it was almost a blizzard out of New York. Up in Central Park the English sparrow, like Keats’s St. Agnes’ Eve owl, for all his feathers was a-cold. The little children of the rich, parading the walks with bare knees, and nurse maids, were blue with the chill and might well envy the little children of the poor for whom the charitable provide stockings. Even out at sea the wind and cold seemed to chill the water till it was made of blue shivers and gooseflesh combers.