48 



The Avifauna. 



among the tree tops that made Mr. Taylor 

 haug on and look at the nettles and bram- 

 bles below and say that he would not like 

 to take a tumble into them. 



Having seen a very large tree, apparently 

 full of nests, some distance to the west be- 

 fore we entered the swamp, we decided to 

 investigate. While hiding mj' shotgun and 

 our extra baggage in some thick brush we 

 found a lot of honeycomb in a hollow oak 

 stub, and from the quantity of bees on it, 

 decided we did not care for honey. The 

 vegetation became less rank and the nettles 

 fewer as we advanced, but the thorns and 

 matted brush overgrown with tough vines 

 became thicker and thicker and presented a 

 formidable barrier to penetrate. Again we 

 would have to cross mounds of dead brush 

 which at times was just rotten enough to 

 let us through or to pitch us headlong into 

 a clump of thorns or a bog, and the vines 

 played tricks on us by tripping us up. We 

 took turns in breaking a trail through this 

 Garden of Eden, and, crawling, climbing, 

 tumbling and scrambling, at last sat down 

 to rest under the giant sycamore, the object 

 of our toiling search, and I doubt if any 

 human being had ever been in that part of 

 the jungle before we had. The only living 

 things we saw on our way were a snake glid- 

 ing under the vines and a ferocious looking 

 woodrat sitting on top of his nest, which 

 was a cone shaped affair of sticks built up 

 from the ground as high as a man's head. 

 I fired two shots at him with a revolver be- 

 fore he disappeared. 



We counted just 32 nests in this tree, 

 which was about no feet high, and no nest 

 was less than 85 or 90 feet from the ground. 

 They w^ere nearly all tennanted too, for, at 

 our approach numerous "konking" Herons 

 flapped hurriedly away. A thrill ofool- 

 ogical delight passed through our veins at 

 the thought of 32 nests, most of them con- 

 taining sets, but the next thought was, 

 "that's a w^hooping big tree to get up." 



That tree was six feet in diameter if it was 



six inches, and there was not a limb nearer 

 than sixty feet on its straight, smooth trunk, 

 but a thick growth of vines and poison oak 

 covered the trunk almost to the first limb. 

 The lot of attempting the climb fe!l to Mr. 

 Taylor, who tried going up the vines and 

 poison oak hand over hand but could not 

 get a good start. So, placing a branch 

 about fifteen feet long against the trunk of 

 the tree the ascent was slowly made up this 

 whitewashed trellis to within a few feet of 

 the first limb, which was found to be too 

 large to straddle without the aid of ropes 

 and climbers. Mr. Taylor did well, but, 

 none but Darwin's Missing Link could pos- 

 sibly have circumvented that limb. 



Retracing our steps and obtaining our 

 hidden baggage, we decided to cut across 

 the swamp as the nearest way to the station, 

 as it was getting late and there was but one 

 train home that night. I found a half 

 built nest of Allen's Hummingbird on a 

 briar a foot from the ground near our bag- 

 gage. Once again on our acrobatic march 

 we were soon into a big bog, and worked 

 and worked to reach the opening of the 

 swamp without seeming to make much pro- 

 gress ; and to make matters worse we could 

 not see the sun and had to guess the way 

 the tortuous passage was leading us. After 

 a lot of work avoiding the usual impedi- 

 ments in our way, we emerged from the 

 swamp almost before we knew it, and, be- 

 spattered with mud, tired, hungry, tattered 

 and torn, set out double-quick across vege- 

 table patches, clods and clover fields to the 

 station, not forgetting to pull up a quantity' 

 of onicns and lettuce for refreshment. 



D. A. Cohen. 



J. A. MORENO, 



(Formerly with J. M. Forbes) 



/T\exi(:a9 fiapd ^arued Ceatl^er U/orl^. 



We make a specialty of Fine Purses from |:.5o to 

 $10.00 ; Portfolios from |io.o'o up ; Hatbands from 75Cts, $i.oo, 

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 in stamped leather. 



Mexican and English Saddles made to order. Orders 

 by mail promptly attended to, and goods sent CO. D. with 

 privilege of examining. 



Address all orders to 



J. A. MORENO. 



8E. DE LA GUERRA STREET, 

 Santa Barbara, Cal. 



