"It looks as
if our door-yard was full of moving lanterns."
"Nothin' but lightnen bugs!" said Joe contemptuously. "Here, see me
catch 'em," and in a few minutes he showed her a handful which he had
killed by crushing between his hands.
"Hold on, I want to catch some too!" and hustling me into the kitchen,
Betty ran along with him and was soon engaged in catching and killing
the beautiful fireflies.
CHAPTER IX
THE HUNTERS
Song birds, plumage birds, water fowl, and many innocent birds of prey,
are hunted from the everglades to the Arctic Circles for the barbaric
purpose of decorating women's hats. The extent of this traffic is
simply appalling.--_G. O. Shields._
When Joe and his father came back from their gunning expeditions, the
accounts they gave of the day's slaughter made me very homesick and
miserable, and wore sadly on my spirits in my captivity.
The heartless indifference with which the woman would ask her husband
if it had been "a good day for killings," almost made me wail aloud.
"Best kind of luck; I bagged nearly a hundred this trip," he replied
exultingly, one night when she put the usual question. "The birds were
as thick as blackberries in the high weeds along the creek, and were
havin' a mighty good time stuffing themselves with seeds.
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