78 
WILD WINGS 
rookery, upon which, doubtless, they often crawled out. One 
of them furnished us not a little amusement. There was a flock 
of six American Coots, or Mud-Hens, feeding a little way out 
in the lake, near to where we had retreated in the boat from 
the mosquitoes to eat our dinner. The wily old fellow had 
evidently seen the coots, for he ke])t diving and emerging 
nearer and nearer to them. The water was too shallow 
for him to catch them from beneath, so when he had come 
reasonably near, in line with the course thev were swimming, 
he lay perfectly still upon the surface, looking like an old 
root or snag. Unwittingly the coots fed along till they were 
perhaps within ten yards. Then they noticed the ’gator, but 
apparently were not sure what it was. Ceasing to feed, they 
swam close together, and really appeared to be holding con¬ 
sultation, in some way. Finally one of them started off, the 
rest looking on, and swam up within a few feet of the object. 
There it stopped and studied it, turning its head from side 
to side, to see it out of either eye. Finally it swam back to 
its companions, and appeared to communicate something, for 
they turned and swam off in the direction from which thev 
had come. The guide told me that the ’gator’s way would 
have been, had they come within range of his weapon, to 
swing his tail around with a great slash and break their 
necks. 
Naturally we made some attempt to form an estimate of 
the bird-population of this great rookery. The Louisiana 
Heron was the most abundant species, and may have had 
from hfteen hundred to two thousand nests. Next would 
come the White Ibises, with well toward one thousand pairs 
or nests ; then Florida Cormorants with about two hundred, 
Anhingas and Little Blue Herons with about one hundred 
each, and the American Egrets with only about twenty, with 
half a dozen pairs of Roseate Spoonbills when the other party 
