THE EGRET 
143 
see. Upon any sudden noise, hundreds of these different 
herons would spring from the trees everywhere about. Then 
they would return and alight upon the tree-tops, the delicate 
snow-white plumes from the backs of the Egrets straying 
out bewitchingly in the breeze. Nearly all day we paddled 
EGRET WATCHING APPROACH OF BOAT 
about amid the lacustrine forest, and I revelled in the sights 
and sounds of this wonderful place, which is probably the 
largest, and perhaps the only large. Egret rookery in North 
America. The only reason that it exists to-day is because it 
is guarded by armed wardens who will arrest, or, if necessary. 
