Connecticut western news., 1881-09-14
Texas Letter,

Among our song birds. the mocking bird of course takes the lead, and the next sweetest singer is the song wren, little larger than the common wren. The mocking bird is regular vocal artist he never seems to forget him. self and put on the happy -go-lucky airs Of the bobolink, but always appears as though he was singing before an audience. The cardi- nal grosbeak, a beautiful red bird has a mel low whistle, you can hardly call it song. Another sweet singer is tiny little bird with green back and blue breast, that lives in the dense thickets. One or tive kinds of sparrows and blue birds make up the list of song birds Hundreds of wood pigeons live here. and oc- cupy discarded mocking birds nests, or lay their eggs on the bare gravel of the hillside. One bird that I never saw until I came to West Texas, is the chapperal or road bird, about as large. or maybe some larger than 8 pigeon. He has very long tail, and does not fly much /; is brown, penciled with black, with stripes of orange color about his eyes, and running back an inch or more. Ills beak is rather long and stout, and he feeds on Hazards and such things. I saw one that had snake more than two feet long, which he was tearing in pieces. Another bir,, that I never saw until this
 
 spring, is 8 black bird with bright yellow spots on his wings, and yellow crest. Blackbirds, robins, meadowlarks, yellowhammers, blue- birds and others, in focks of thousands spend the winter here, and some of the meadow larks and blue birds live here all the time. The water birds are the big blue heron, the white heron-a beautiful snow white bird nearly four feet tall-the brook bttern, kill deer, and others that do not know the names of. Our old friend, the crow, is here in limit ed numbers, for he has to confine himself to A diet of grasshoppers principally, as the bug zards do not give him show at dead s'hoss." And the buzzards seeing one sailing through the air, you would think him very majestic bird, but you would quickly change your mind after seeing him squabbling with some ot his comrades over dead hog. The red headed woodpecker, the largest of his kind, nearly as big az crow, and the blue jay are common in East Texas, but neither of them are found here.
 Some things about the Southern people no true blue yankee will ever tolerate. One of them is the housekeeping. have yet to eat
 - ~~Atsd by southern woman where ne@4 -~ i'd: : the colp everything was good of it's kln>,,
 bread, bacon and baked potatoes may be first rate. but the coffee would be sure to be mud dy. I have never yet seen slice of raised bread-such as everybody has at the North, on any table except those of Northern people. One man told me it was cheaper to eat bis cult, but another that I heard complaining of how much it cost to live, did not seem to think so, for he said he had paid out twelve dollars for baking powder to bake up barrel of flour that cost ten.
 Those that have vegetables do not cook them but once a day, and probably three fourths of the people have none at all more than four-ffths of the time. Meat, bread and milk is their principal diet. Some claim that vegetables are not healthy, some that they do not like them. One man that took dinner with us one day, did not like Irish potatoes cooked, enough for our dinner and breakfast I ina zine the chiefreason they are willing to live so poorly, is, the inclination is lacking to learn to live differently. Another thing, and a great drawback to their worldly prosperity, is their propensity to go visiting. They visit in season and out of season, and often to the neg lect of their business or their crops yet they have some excuse, for they have nothing else for recreation only to go preaching of Sun- day now and then. Very few of them are readers, and they never have a lecture or concert
 The poorest and most mo account" of all Texans has his good qualities no one will do you a kindness quicker, and you can stay with him as long as he has pint of meal or scrap of bacon left. When Yankee 'tguesses,'' Southerner ''reckons,' or he ssdon't reckon'' "Right smart" is used great deal, too, and sometimes rather queerly, as when the old woman said she had made ''right smart chance" of soft soap. "Done'' is used where it is useless, as s'done gone," "done finished" 'sPlumb" IS another word used deal where it has very little meaning. heard one woman use it, however, when it expressed it's full meaning, but she was not conscious of it her little boy was threatened with conges- tive chill, and she said he turned 'splum pur- ple."
 Mir. Editor An individual from St, Louis has been through this portion of the Lone Star State, writing it up for the press. That was all right, but does he suppose no one but he ever thought the old live oaks looked like old appletrees? Sir, I have the columns of your widely circulated journal to prove that I