IN THE CAPE SABLE WILDERNESS 49 



The first lake was quite a large one, several miles long. 

 We poled past various little mangrove islands, starting num- 

 bers of Brown Pelicans and Florida Cormorants from some 

 of them, where they were roosting upon dead stubs at their 

 shores. Then we followed a narrow channel through the man- 

 grove forest, the connection with the next lake of the series. 

 White Ibises and Yellow-crowned Night Herons kept flying 

 up before us to enliven the scene. Presently we came out into 

 the lake. It also was very shallow, with bare mud-flats here 

 and there, on which were scattered quite a host of birds. 

 Conspicuous and noisy were a flock of Laughing Gulls. Less 

 conspicuous, but even more interesting to us, were the 

 shore-birds, which we found abundant both in this spot and 

 elsewhere during the day. Right before us upon the flat 

 a fine band of the large Black-bellied Plover, and around 

 them a humble host of various sandpipers, Ring-necked 

 Plovers, Dowitchers, and the like, were feeding, sedately or 

 nimbly, as the case might be. But, dwarfing them into insig- 

 nificance by physical contrast, there stood sleepily a pair of 

 splendid White Pelicans, with bodies as large and plump as 

 the roundest pillows of the daintiest couch. We landed just 

 where we were, and I skulked with my camera along the 

 shore, under shelter of the forest, till I was delightfully near the 

 unconscious pelicans. I was almost ready for an exposure 

 when away they went, alarmed evidently by the boat. They 

 alighted about a mile oft" out on a flat, where I stalked them 

 under cover of an island and secured some telephoto pictures 

 of them, though at longer range than I could have wished. 

 As soon as I showed myself they flapped heavily away. 



Thus we proceeded, visiting in all four or five connecting 

 lakes, examining a number of islands, but without finding any 

 rookeries of breeding birds, or seeing any more White Peli- 

 cans. These last were plenty here a month ago, but they had 



