58 WILD WINGS 



crossed the bayou into the main part of the rookery. About 

 four P. M. we reached a place where it came nearly to an 

 end, and, thanks to a fallen tree, we managed to flounder 

 across. The yery first nest I examined, about six feet from the 

 ground, contained four young Snowy Herons. W^hile I was 

 standing there, the queenly mother, exquisite with her back- 

 load of elegant drooping " aigrette" plumes, flew down and 

 fed her princely children. About twenty-fiye feet up the next 

 tree, also a black mangroye, was another bunch of sticks in 

 a crotch. A sort of pinkish flush around its edge led me to 

 climb to it, and I gazed ujjon three young Roseate Spoon- 

 bills. They were perhaps a third grown, and were clad in 

 a whitish down, through which i:)ink feathers, especially on 

 the wings, were growing. If the young herons were princely, 

 surely we must call these royal, clad in what could pass for 

 kingly " purple." A little distance away were a brood of 

 young spoonbills, nearly grown, that were scrambling out 

 of their nest. On the tree-tops around perched a scattered 

 company of White Ibises, Louisiana and Snowy Herons, and 

 the elegant pink creatures of the soup-ladle bill, looking down 

 upon us in silent fear and protest at the intrusion. 



My plates were nearly all used, but I expended the remain- 

 ing few judiciously among the mass of wonderful material, 

 taking briefly timed exposures with the smaller camera 

 screwed up near the nests, and slow snaps with the " Reflex," 

 with single lens, at the " Fink Curlews " upon the trees. Then 

 the guide fairly dragged me back, despite my protests that 

 I had not yet seen the nests of the American Egrets or of 

 the Wood Ibises beyond. But it was yery necessary to get out 

 of that morass before sundown. After a hard struggle we 

 succeeded in so doing, but with unspeakable regret on my 

 part over what I was leaying behind. 



If eyer in my life I was thoroughly tired out, it was when, in 



