174 The Wilson Bulletin — No. G5. 



next stage of the journey, one hundred miles to Wihiiington and 

 only a single house for the accommodation of travelers, on the 

 road; expatiates on the enormous cypress swamps. "Picture 

 to yourself a forest of prodigious trees, rising, as thick as they 

 can grow, from a vast and impenetrable morass, covered for 

 ten feet from the ground with reeds. The leafless limbs of the 

 cypresses are clothed with an extraordinary kind of moss 

 (Tillandsia usneoidcs), from two to ten feet long, in such 

 quantities that fifty men might conceal themselves in one tree. 

 Nothing in this country struck me with such surprise as the 

 prospect of several thousand acres of such timber, loaded, as 

 it were, with many million tons of tow waving in the wind. 

 I attempted to penetrate several of these swamps, with my gun, 

 in search of something new ; but, except in some chance 

 places, I found it altogether impracticable." Yet about twelve 

 miles north of Wilmington he succeeded in killing two, and 

 capturing the third Ivory-billed Woodpecker ; the latter being 

 only wing-tipped, uttered a most piteous note, exactly resem- 

 bling the violent crying of a young child. Placing it under 

 cover, he rode on to the town, "arriving at the piazza of the 

 hotel, where I intended to^ put up, the landlord came forward, 

 and a number of other persons who happened to be there, all 

 equally alarmed at what they heard ; this was greatly increased 

 by my asking him v/hether he could furnish me with accommo- 

 dations for myself and my baby. The man looked blank and 

 foolish, while the others stared with still greater astonishment. 

 After diverting myself for a minute or two at their expense, 

 I drew my Woodpecker from under the cover, and a general 

 laugh took place." The bird had its revenge later, however; 

 for when left alone in a room, it wrecked a mahogany table 

 and almost cut its way through lath and plaster to freedom. 



From Wilmington, he rode through pine savannas and cy- 

 press swamps, as before ; sometimes thirty miles at a stretch 

 without seeing a cabin or human being. On arriving at the 

 Wackamaw, Pedee and Black river region, he took long zigzag 

 journeys among the wealthy rice planters, receiving cordial 

 welcome. Forty-two miles north of this region, he had been 



