"Oh, I don't like to see it live. It's the poisonousest snake there is."

As he spoke he turned the boat: but the snake saved him further trouble,
for just then it uncoiled and swam directly toward us, as if it meant to
come aboard. "Oh, you're coming this way, are you?" said the boy
sarcastically. "Well, come on!" The snake came on, and when it got well
within range he took up his fishing-rod (with hooks at the end for
drawing game out of the reeds and bonnets), and the next moment the
snake lay dead upon the water. He slipped the end of the pole under it
and slung it ashore. "There! how do you like that?" said he, and he
headed the boat upstream again. It was a "copper-bellied moccasin," he
declared, whatever that may be, and was worse than a rattlesnake.

On the river, as in the creek, we were continually exploring bays and
inlets, each with its promising patch of bonnets. Nearly every such
place contained at least one Florida gallinule; but where were the
"purples," about which we kept talking,--the "royal purples," concerning
whose beauty my boy was so eloquent?

"They are not common yet," he would say. "By and by they will be as
thick as Floridas are now."

"But don't they stay here all winter?"

"No, sir; not the purples."

"Are you certain about that?"

"Oh yes, sir. I have hunted this river too much. They couldn't be here