164 Kennard, The Okaloacoochee Slough. [ April 



After breakfast on March 23, Tom and I again started for the 

 "Flint Head " rookery, from which we had been diverted by the 

 Spoonbills two days before. We struck south from the alligator 

 lake through about the worst bit of swamp it has ever been my lot 

 to traverse, wading up to our armpits in water covered with a 

 of skim of "lettuce," or climbing six or eight feet in the air over 

 prostrate trees, balancing ourselves on logs, crawling through vines 

 or almost impenetrable jungle, and always dodging moccasins, 

 until we came to the rookery, perhaps a half a mile from the lake. 

 The cypresses here were magnificent, huge trees four, five, six or 

 seven feet in diameter above the buttresses, and in one case over 

 nine; growing well apart so that most of them had spreading tops. 



Here in a strip from one hundred to two hundred yards wide 

 and extending for a mile or so, was the rookery. Not all of the 

 trees were occupied, but most of the good ones held from four or 

 five to twenty nests apiece, clear out on the ends of upreaching 

 branches. At the northerly end of the rookery the nests contained 

 vociferous young. A little farther south most of them appeared 

 to contain eggs, while at the southerly end the nests were still in 

 process of construction. Apparently they had started to build at 

 the northerly end first, and then as the newcomers took up their 

 parental duties from day to day, extended the rookery south. 



Here hour after hour there was a constant stream of birds flying 

 back and forth from a clump of willows at the border of the swamp, 

 that was being rapidly denuded of twigs and sticks, which the big 

 birds broke off with their powerful bills and carried to their nests. 

 Tom watched them for some time and reported that when a bird 

 flew up to a willow and lit, it would perhaps grasp several twigs at 

 once with its feet, apparently in order to get a better hold, and 

 then seizing a twig with its bill, would pull and jerk until it 

 broke off, or, if unsuccessful, get hold of some other twig, break it 

 off, and then fly away. 



Tom was also lucky enough to get a view at close range of 

 several "Flint Heads" feeding in an open place in the water be- 

 neath some "pop ash" trees. He described them as walking 

 solemnly back and forth in water about up to their knees, with 

 tails erect; and when feeding dragging their bills beside them, 

 upside down like a Flamingo, opening and shutting them rapidly 



