"igi5 J Kennard, The Okaloacoochee Slough. 165 



and apparently sifting the mud through them. When meeting, 

 they would often throw their heads back, puffing out their feathers 

 at the base of their necks, and, if quarrelsome, would snap their 

 bills loudly at each other. In the rookery the continual clatter of 

 snapping bills can be heard quite a distance. 



We found a number of Spoonbills which were apparently just 

 beginning their nesting season, and saw several standing on what 

 I supposed to be their nests at the top of tall cypresses, while 

 another was engaged in fixing up the lining of its nest. 



Tom and 1 tried to make an approximate estimate of the number 

 of birds in the rookery, but were unable to arrive at any satis- 

 factory conclusion. The traveling was so difficult that we could 

 not undertake to block off the swamp into small areas in which we 

 could count the nests, and we had to content ourselves with guess- 

 ing. Tom, after further explorations the next day, thought there 

 were at least ten thousand nests of the "Flint Heads," while I felt 

 sure there were more than five thousand. At any rate, there were 

 a great many, and among them a few Spoonbills' nests. 



The other birds, White Ibises, Herons, Anhingas, etc., appeared 

 not to have begun breeding, and apparently the first two only used 

 the swamp as a roost. There must have been several thousand 

 White Ibises and perhaps a hundred Egrets that used the swamp, 

 and countless Little Blue, Louisiana and Night Herons of both 

 species. None of these had apparently begun to breed. The 

 season appeared late, and Tom thought that when they did breed 

 they would probably build their nests out among the sloughs and 

 willow islands somewhere on the prairie. 



Just east of camp, only a few hundred yards up the slough, was 

 a very lovely "bonnet" lake, a feeding ground for many of these 

 birds, and at its outlet I collected several Wood Ducks of both 

 sexes, adults in full breeding plumage. As Florida Wood Ducks 

 are thought, by some of the gunners there, to be rather smaller than 

 our northern species, I took pretty careful measurements and found 

 them to be identical as to wings, tail, tarsus and biH. In length 

 four birds measured seventeen and one half inches when stretched 

 to their utmost immediately after killing, and one reached seven- 

 teen and three quarters. 



On March 26 we broke camp, yoked up our oxen, and left this 



