40 SYLVAN SECRETS. 



sula, I reached St. Augustine, Florida, in the 

 first week in November, finding the bird on 

 all the streams that I examined between the 

 two points. 



It has always struck me as most singular 

 that minks, weasels, and snakes do not ex- 

 terminate Ceryle Alcyon on account of the 

 burrowing habit. Many of the nest-burrows 

 that I have explored have been quite large 

 enough for an averaged-sized mink to enter, 

 and the least of them would have been 

 traversed easily by a weasel, to say nothing 

 of snakes. Of course, in the incubating sea- 

 son the bird might guard the nest; but it 

 would seem that the young must be terribly 

 exposed ; still not more so, perhaps, than those 

 of the whippoorwill. 



The burrow is usually in the clayey bank or 

 bluff of a stream, entering almost horizontally 

 to a distance of from two to ten feet ; but I 

 found one that descended vertically two feet 

 and then turned at about right-angles. This 

 was near the edge of a brook bluff in Middle 

 Indiana. 



Drawing upon my notes and my recollec- 

 tions of Ceryle Alcyon, I see again the hun- 

 dreds of trout-brooks and bass-streams I 

 have whipped from the Manistee to the Kissi- 

 mee, and all the little rivers I have voyaged 

 upon from the Boardman to Pearl River, but 

 the one stream that I remember as fairly 

 haunted with this bird is the Salliquoy, a 

 strong rivulet in the hill-country of Cherokee, 

 Georgia. In a half rotten tulip pirogue I 

 made a slow voyage down this stream during 

 the last of April and the first of May, a sea- 

 son when the leaves and flowers of that wild, 

 strange region are at the fullest stage of their 

 development. I started far up among the 



