I was never so glad to hjve an expert alon>;. while he was 

 himself quite excited because he could iilentify some types thai 

 should not have been there at that time of year, but away north 

 at their breeding; grounds. He told me that some of these species 

 stay in this, the far south, all spring and summer and may even 

 nest there, he believes that they have always done so and have 

 been spotted only in recent years as a result of the more careful 

 sui^eys of the smaller and more specialized natural habitats in 

 this province by local enthusiasts This place was very isolated 

 because it was the only stretdi of wixided levee to be seen (from 

 water level) within the bounds of the horizon, and it formed a 

 meandering ridge only about two miles long. 



Levees are natural banks constructed like retaining walls and 

 running continuously along both sides of a river. They are 

 caused by the river dropping its debris and silt in times of flood, 

 and doing so most of all wherever its waters are slowed down. 

 This is naturally among nxits. tree trunks, and other obstructions 

 that line its banks This in turn prompts a sturdier growth of 

 such obstructions; and so the process goes on until a quite high 

 wall or levee is built up. Now. levees are places of refuge for all 

 manner of animals, even those that can well survive in water or 

 even live in it. for most of their time, like otters; and they also 

 offer the only living quarters for purely terrestrial animals, 

 notably birds. Levees are also favorite gathering grounds for 

 reptiles and amphibians, and this place was outstanding espe- 

 cially for snakes 



Most people would feci that this would altogether set at 

 nought the beauties of the place, especially since the majority of 

 the snakes were cottonmouth moccanins. probably the second- 

 deadliest of our indigenous snakes Yet this animal, for all Its un- 

 pleasant potentialities and its rather ugly appearance -ti is a 

 dirty blackish olive in color, unrelieved by the beautiful 

 markings of the rattlers— is a perfectly decent citizen of nature 

 that happens to get its living by striking its food, both on land 

 and in the water, with poison-injecting fangs. Its normal food 

 is mostly fish, but it takes also frogs and the giant Siren, a huge, 

 slimy, eel-like amphibian of the salamander group that grows 

 to three feet in length and has only one pair of tiny legs just 

 behind the head. This creature lives in debris-filled water, and 

 it will grab small rodents including even muskrats Cotton- 

 mouths are exceedingly common all over the delta, and in 

 temporarily or even permanently flooded areas every clump of 

 grass showing above water appears to house one. Their distri- 

 bution coincides almost exactly with that of the coastal fringe 

 provinces from southern Virginia to south Florida, up the 

 Mississippi valley to Illinois, southwest to the western edge of 

 the East Chaparral, and up the Rio Grande valley to the Pecos 

 River. Their young look quite different from the adults, and are 

 almost indistinguishable from copperheads; and like the young 

 of that animal also, the cottonmouths have bright yellow ends 

 to their tails. These two snakes are. moreover, of the same genus, 

 known as Agkistrodon. meaning "hook-tooth " 



The Coypu~its fur is called "nutria"— is a South American aquatic porcupine that was intro- 

 duced to North America forty years ago and is now widespread 



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