364 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



crowds of warblers and vireos of many different kinds, 

 evidently migrants from the north, and generally silent. 

 The most characteristic birds, however, were the wood- 

 peckers, of which there were seven or eight species, the 

 commonest around our camp being the handsome red- 

 bellied, the brother of the red-head which we saw in the 

 clearings. The most notable birds and those which most 

 interested me were the great ivory-billed woodpeckers. 

 Of these I saw three, all of them in groves of giant 

 cypress; their brilliant white bills contrasted finely with 

 the black of their general plumage. They were noisy 

 but wary, and they seemed to me to set off the wildness of 

 the swamp as much as any of the beasts of the chase. 

 Among the birds of prey the commonest were the barred 

 owls, which I have never elsewhere seen so plentiful. 

 Their hooting and yelling were heard all around us 

 throughout the night, and once one of them hooted at 

 intervals for several minutes at midday. One of these 

 owls had caught and was devouring a snake in the late 

 afternoon, while it was still daylight. In the dark nights 

 and still mornings and evenings their cries seemed strange 

 and unearthly, the long hoots varied by screeches, and 

 by all kinds of uncanny noises. 



At our first camp our tents were pitched by the bayou. 

 For four days -the weather was hot, with steaming rains; 

 after that it grew cool and clear. Huge biting flies, 

 bigger than bees, attacked our horses; but the insect 

 plagues, so veritable a scourge in this country during the 

 months of warm weather, had well-nigh vanished in the 

 first few weeks of the fall. 



