Bird Life Big Cypress Swamp Region 91 



a moccasin is within reach of your hand. If he is a small 

 one, he will probably slip off the other side, but if he happens 

 to be four and a half or five feet long and eight or ten inches 

 in girth, he just coils up, opens his white mouth, gently 

 quivers his tail and waits. You will have to kill him or go 

 the other way. 



I visited this rookery a second time the middle of April, 

 making the trip across country from Immokalee. Large 

 numbers of the young birds had now left the nests and many 

 were accompanying the old ones to the feeding grounds. In 

 the morning the young Wood Ibis congregated by the hun- 

 dreds in the cypress saplings at the edge of the swamp just 

 opposite the camp to enjoy the warmth of the early svm. 

 We found one group of Egrets, about fifty pairs, with fresh 

 nests and just beginning the duties of incubation. These 

 were undoubtedly new aTrivals, remnants of a shot-out 

 rookery not far aw^ay. 



To illustrate some of the uncertainties of a cypress swamp. 

 We were three hours reaching this colony of Egrets, located 

 less than a mile within the swamp, although we had visited 

 the same place a month before and presiunably knew exactly 

 where it was. The trouble arose from starting in at a slightly 

 different point and encountering a deep lettuce covered lake, 

 in detouring around which we got off our course. By climb- 

 ing a tree we got a line on the flight of the birds and event- 

 ually the croaking of the nestlings drew us to the right spot. 

 In going out we picked up our old trail and were at the edge 

 of the swamp in half an hour. 



This rookery has been under the protection of the Audubon 

 Society since 1912. In that year, through the energetic 

 efforts of Mr. Baynard, B. Rhett Green of Fort Myers was 

 hired as warden and assumed the duties of guarding it about 

 the middle of the breeding season. Its future now seems 

 assured, and it is perhaps not too much to anticipate that it 

 wdll eventually regain something of the prosperity of its 

 former days. 



I shall not go into the details or attempt to recount all 

 the various happenings of my trip, for this might finally 



