NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 57 



Egg (Za^es.— California: 92 records, May 20 to July 15; 46 records, 

 May 28 to July 5. Texas: 35 records, April 15 to June 6; 18 rec- 

 ords, April 22 to May 19. 



Family CICONIIDAE, Storks and Wood Ibises 



MYCTERIA AMERICANA Linnaeus 

 WOOD IBIS 



HABITS 



A striking and a picturesque bird is the wood ibis, also known in 

 Florida as "gannet" or "flinthead," both appropriate names. It is 

 a permanent resident in the hot, moist bottom lands of our southern 

 borders and seldom straggles far north of our southern tier of States. 

 To see it at its best one must penetrate the swampy bayous of Lou- 

 isiana or Texas, where the big water oaks and tupelos are draped in 

 long festoons of Spanish moss, or the big cypress swamps of Florida, 

 where these stately trees tower for a hundred feet or more straight 

 upward until their interlacing tops form a thick canopy of leaves 

 above the dim cathedral aisles. One must work his way through al- 

 most impenetrable thickets of button willows, underbrush, and inter- 

 lacing tangles of vines. He must wade waist deep or more in muddy 

 pools, where big alligators lurk unseen or leave their trails on muddy 

 banks, as warnings to be cautious, or where the deadly moccassin may 

 squirm away under foot or may lie in wait, coiled up on some fallep 

 log, ready to strike. If not deterred by these drawbacks, or by the 

 clouds of malarial mosquitos or by the hot, reeking atmosphere of 

 the tropical swamps, he may catch a fleeting glimpse of the big white 

 birds or hear their croaking notes as they fly from the tree tops above. 

 Probably he may see a solitary old "flint head" perched in the top 

 of some old dead tree in the distance, standing on one leg, with his 

 head drawn in upon his shoulders and his great bill resting on his 

 chest. Perhaps there may be a whole flock of them in such a tree ; 

 but the observer will not get very near them, for the wood ibis is an 

 exceedingly shy bird, and a sentinel is always on the lookout. One 

 is more likely to see the wood ibis on the wing, flying in flo(;ks to or 

 from its feeding grounds, or circling high in the air above its breeding 

 rookery. On the wing it shows uj) to the best advantage, sailing 

 gracefully on motionless wings, a big white bird, with black flight 

 feathers in its long wings and in its short tail. 



Nesting.— My experience with the nesting habits of the wood ibis 

 has been rather limited. In the big Jane Green cypress swamp, near 

 the upper St. Johns Kiver in Florida, we found a breeding colony in 

 April, 1902. The cypresses here were the largest I liave ever seen, 

 measuring 6 feet or more in diameter at the base, tapering rapidly to 

 about 3 feet in diameter, and then running straight up at about that size 



