126 



FLORIDA BIRD-LIFE 



hung live-oaks with every 

 tree and plant by leaf and 

 blossom, and every bird by 

 plumage and voice, proclaim- 

 ing the sweetness, beauty 

 and joy of May. Ten miles of 

 spring's pageant brought me 

 to the moat of the Egrets' 

 stronghold. Here I entered 

 a boat, to pass through an 

 apparently endless, flooded 

 forest, known as the Lake of 

 the Great Eeserve. 



There are delights of the 

 water and delights of the 

 wood, but when both are 

 combined and one's canoe- 

 path leads through a forest, 

 and that of cypress, clad in 

 new, lace-like foliage and 

 draped with swaying moss, 

 one's exaltation of spirit 

 passes all measurable 

 bounds. No snapping of 

 twigs or rustling of leaves 

 betrays one. We paddled so 

 easily, so noiselessly, that we seemed as much inhabitants 

 of the place as the great alligators that sank at our 

 approach. 



The Fish Hawks whistled plaintively, but settled on 

 their nests as we passed below them ; the Wood Ducks led 

 their broods to the deeper woods ; Pileated and Bed-bellied 

 Woodpeckers, Crested Flycatchers, Tufted Tits and glow- 

 ing Prothonotary Warblers, at home in holes in the cypress ; 

 Parula Warblers weaving their cradles in the Spanish 

 moss all accepted us as part of the fauna, and it was not 



Louisiana Heron and Nest 



