BLACK VULTURES. "THEY SIT IN ROWS UPON THE ADJOINING HOUSES' 



CHAPTER VI 



SCAVENGERS OF THE SOUTH 



Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture. 



Longfellow. 



WARM was the Florida sunshine and the soft cypress- 

 scented breeze that clear April morning over the 

 great Jane Green Swamp. On the lonely prairie 

 beyond its confines herds of half-wild cattle grazed serenely. 

 Out on the islets of the immense adjoining marsh that formed 

 the head waters of the St. John's River the Ward's Herons 

 and several others of this tribe had built their rude stick nests 

 in the willows, or were laying their bluish-green eggs; while 

 the Snake-birds, with their peculiar long necks and rudder 

 tails, perched lazily upon their roosts over the water, ready 

 for a plunge after the first venturesome fish that might rise 



