JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



11 



intervals. The moon rose towards 

 morning and its reflection on a neigh- 

 boring fog bank created a lunar rain- 

 bow of great beauty. As the sky 

 lighted it showed us that, as in the 

 afternoon, several water turkeys 

 were roosting in the willows. 



By wetting up a bit of calcined 

 plaster and covering our gun sights 

 with it we found we could do a very 

 good job of "sighting" in the imper- 

 fect light, and we tumbled one after 

 another of these unique birds into the 

 water till we were satisfied we had 

 killed eight of them, our excuse for 

 such wholesale slaughter was that 

 heretofore we had found this species 

 very difficult to approach and they 

 are quite a desideratum in collec- 

 tions. They belong to the family of 

 "darters" and also travel under the 

 name of "snake bird" and "anhin- 

 ga." Only one of the birds fell on 

 our side of the bushes, this we re- 

 trieved at once. The balance were 

 swallowed by alligators before it was 

 light enough to work our boat to 

 them. 



As morning dawned immense num- 

 bers of herons of several varieties 

 flew over us. A snowy heron, which 

 had intended to light in the lagoon, 

 seeing us wheeled rapidly away but 

 the Educator, with a well directed 

 shot brought it down. In trying to 

 secure a cormorant which had settled 

 down at some distance from us, we 

 pursued it into an arm of the lagoon 

 we had not before visited. From this 

 we discovered a creek-like channel, 

 the quicker current of which indicat- 

 ed something more than another 

 branch to a lagoon. We decided to 

 follow it rather than to retrace our 

 old route farther. This was our first 

 experience going with the current 

 which was really considerable. Per- 

 haps lack of sleep may have exager- 

 ated the sensation somewhat, but as 

 aided by the stream, we cruised down 

 that creek it seemed to us both as if 

 we were sliding down hill— a feeling 

 I never remember to have experi- 

 enced when running down really 

 swift rivers. In places the channel 

 would narrow till it was barely a yard 

 in width, again it would be choked 

 with "lettuce" but no serious obsta- 

 cles presented themselves. In a low 

 willow we discovered a "water tur- 

 key" on her nest, from which we ob- 

 tained four bluish white eggs which 



were covered with a thin white cal- 

 careous deposit as with the herons. 

 Ornithological works report them as 

 nesting in March and April and we 

 were therefore surprised to find them 

 at it thus early. 



Farther on we came to a lone 

 dwarfed cypress surmounted by a 

 bulky nest in which a great blue 

 heron stood sentinel, this contained 

 no eggs. About two o'clock that af- 

 ternoon we emerged from our creek 

 into the channel of the true St. 

 Johns itself, in sight of ti.e tall pal- 

 mettos in the rear of the deserted 

 cane patch at "Indian old field," 

 where we soon after landed, sleepy 

 and hungry. About noon on the 29th 

 we received a call from the syrup 

 makers, who returning from their 

 Christmas festivities, had caught 

 sight of our tent and pulled in to pass 

 the time o' day with us. They ex- 

 pressed surprise at finding us still on 

 the St. Johns, but we showed them 

 skins of least bittern, courlans, an- 

 hingas, kites, white and snowy herons 

 and wood ibis and intimated that a 

 good collecting ground was the ex- 

 cuse for our present location. Just 

 as they were departing we casually 

 asked for directions to Salt Lake. It 

 was then that we learned that at Mud 

 Lake, about half way between our 

 present camp and theirs, we should 

 have borne sharply to the east, in- 

 stead we had kept on a good twenty 

 miles to the south. 



Our visitors were hardly out of 

 sight before we had struck camp and 

 were following them back as far as 

 Mud Lake. From this we entered 

 Snake Creek, rightly named for a 

 more sinuous channel it was never 

 my fortune to see. Emerging from 

 this, we came out in sight of the 

 storehouse and knew at last we were 

 on Salt Lake, a body of water called 

 three miles long by two wide, but it 

 must take very high water to give it 

 these dimensions. The piney woods 

 nearly touch the shore for a short 

 distance on the eastern side where 

 the storehouse is, but otherwise it is 

 surrounded by a vast marsh, why the 

 water of this lake should be brackish 

 is a mystery. 



The'Volusia,a small steamer, was un- 

 loading her cargo being taken ashore 

 on lighters. We sent a box of speci- 

 mens back to Sanford on her, and 

 then made a bargain with a teamster 



