GREAT HERON. 27 



of the sea. The appearance they present to a stranger 

 is singular. A front of tall and perfectly straight trunks, 

 rising to the height of fifty or sixty feet without a limb, 

 and crowded in every direction, their tops so closely 

 woven together as to shut out the day, spreading the 

 gloom of a perpetual twilight below. On a nearer 

 approach, they are found to rise out of the water, which, 

 from the impregnation of the fallen leaves and roots of 

 the cedars, is of the colour of brandy. Amidst this 

 bottom of congregated springs, the ruins of the former 

 forest lie piled in every state of confusion. The roots, 

 prostrate logs, and, in many places, the water, are 

 covered with green mantling moss, while an under- 

 growth of laurel, fifteen or twenty feet high, intersects 

 every opening so completely, as to render a passage 

 through laborious and harassing beyond description ; 

 at every step, you either sink to the knees, clamber over 

 fallen timber, squeeze yourself through between the 

 stubborn laurels, or plunge to the middle in ponds made 

 by the uprooting of large trees, and which the green 

 moss concealed from observation. In calm weather, 

 the silence of death reigns in these dreary regions ; a 

 few interrupted rays of %ht shoot across the gloom ; 

 and unless for the occasional hollow screams of the 

 herons, and the melancholy chirping of one or two 

 species of small birds, all is silence, solitude, and 

 desolation. When a breeze rises, at first it sighs 

 mournfully through the tops ; but as the gale increases, 

 the tall mast-like cedars wave like fishing poles, and 

 rubbing against each other, produce a variety of singular 

 noises, that, with the help of a little imagination, 

 resemble shrieks, groans, growling of bears, wolves, 

 and such like comfortable music. 



On the tops of the tallest of these cedars the herons 

 construct their nests, ten or fifteen pair sometimes 

 occupying a particular part of the swamp. The nests 

 are large, formed of sticks, and lined with smaller twigs ; 

 each occupies the top of a single tree. The eggs are 

 generally four, of an oblong pointed form, larger than 

 those of a hen, and of a light greenish blue, wi 



