24 B Y- WA YS AND BIRD-NO TES. 



front of the cabin, with a faint, dreamy mur- 

 mur and crept darkling into the swamp be- 

 tween dense brakes of cane, and bay-bushes. 



" Ye-as, seh, I ken mek er bee-line to that 

 air ole pine snag. Hit taint more'n er half er 

 mile out yender," continued my host and vol- 

 unteer guide, as we climbed the little worm- 

 fence that inclosed the house ; " but I allus 

 called 'em air birds woodcocks ; didn't know 

 'at they hed any other name ; allus thut 'at a 

 Peckwood wer' a leetle, tinty, stripedy feller ; 

 never hyeard er them air big ole woodcocks 

 a bein' called Peckwoods." 



He led and I followed into the damp, m6ss- 

 scented shadows of the swamp, under cypress 

 and live-oak and through slender fringes of 

 cane. We floundered across the coffee-colored 

 stream, the water cooling my india-rubber 

 wading-boots above the knees, climbed over 

 great walls of fallen tree-boles, crept under 

 low-hanging festoons of wild vines, and at 

 length found ourselves wading rather more 

 than ankle-deep in one of those shallow 

 cypress lakes of which the larger part of the 

 Okefenokee region is formed. I thought it a 

 very long half-mile before we reached a small 

 tussock whereon grew, in the midst of a dense 

 underbrush thicket, .some enormous pine 

 trees. 



" Ther'," said the guide, " thet air snag air 

 the one. Sorter on ter tother side ye'll see 

 the hole, 'bout twenty foot up. Kem yer, I'll 

 show hit ter ye." 



The "snag" was 'a stump some fifty feet 

 tall, barkless, smooth, almost as white as chalk, 

 the decaying remnant of what had once been 

 the grandest pine on the tussock. 



