SNAKE BIRD 67 



tion she tantalizingly remained for two long hours. All 

 of that time I was cramped up in my palmetto blind with 

 the villainous mosquitoes taking every advantage of my 

 enforced non-combative attitude toward them. With 

 my fish line grasped expectantly in wait for a proper 

 position of the bird, I passed those two hours under a 

 nervous tension rarely experienced, even on some of my 

 big game hunts. 



During the prolonged absence of the parent birds, 

 caused by the presence of the focusing cloth, the young 

 kept up a most persistent ''skeek, skeek, skeek!" wav- 

 ing their snake-like necks, while their gular sacs oscil- 

 lated with the rapidity of an electric buzzer. With the 

 old birds within a few feet of the nest the pleadings and 

 begging were pathetic. This continued until the old 

 birds responded by feeding the young. 



The Snake-bird comes in with the blustering noise 

 of a Wild Turkey, lighting awkwardly and making a 

 great noise with its wings, while its actual perching is 

 ungainly and clumsy to a marked degree. 



Every day as I approached the nest tree, the old 

 birds flew a few hundred yards away from me, then sud- 

 denly wheeled about and at great speed returned, passing 

 over me and repeating their rapid flights, each time ris- 

 ing higher than before, until they were several hundred 

 feet high, when they soared in vast circles, with out- 

 spread wings, all the while ascending until they became 

 mere circling specks of black in the dome of the sky. 



Now, after I had concealed myself for a short time, 

 they came tumbling back, without any preliminary skir- 

 mishes, and landed in the tops of the mangrove trees 

 near the nests. Thence, with much fuss, they waddled 

 down the limbs toward their long-necked, pleading young. 



The male, as he approached the nest containing the 

 young, presented a formidable appearance, with his jet- 

 black rigid neck, his bristling plumage and open mouth, 

 all the while producing sounds like the striking of two 

 pebbles together, alternating with sounds like the squeak- 

 ing of a new leather riding saddle. The female was far 

 more tractable, in both appearance and action. The 

 male reminded me of a maddened baboon with all his 

 hair turned the wrong way. (Fig. 16. Frontispiece.) 



