M' '^v.^ 



ISSUED IN BEHALF OF THE SCIENCE WHICH IT ADVOCATES. 



Volume II, 



MAY, 1876. 



Number 3. 



Reminiscences of a Collector. 



BY "OOLOGIST.' 



tHE surveyor said he saw several nests 

 of some kind in the cypress trees of 

 '^ this swamp. The swamp was stnnll 

 and entirely flooded. It was studded thick- 

 ly with cypresses and so intensely dark tliat 

 one might be led to believe that it was mid- 

 night. I struck for the center. Several 

 times I heard a hoarse hronh^ kronk, but 

 was unable to make out whctlier it was ut- 

 tered by a bird or animal, until a Crane, 

 likely a Great Blue Crane, flapped in a tree 

 aViove me and made the place resound with 

 his hoarse voice. 



Thinks I, "This must be a very den of Her- 

 ons," and was not long in confirming my 

 idea, and I was not slow to discover that 

 tlie place was a very paradise of Egrets' 

 and Herons' eggs. The swamp was a very 

 gloomy locality, and the gases that arose 

 from its waters, which were about a foot 

 deep, covering three or four feet of soft 

 mud, are very injurious to the health. 



Just as I had reached a little spot of 

 earth, fi'om which loomed two cypresses, a 

 heavy fluttering among the branches start- 

 led me, and I was eager to ascertain its or- 

 igin. On glancing upward, I saw nearly 



a dozen nests, and the vmearthly '■'■kronk" 

 of the Great Heron and the minor notes 

 of smaller ones indicated their possessors. 

 I found tlu'ee nests of the former, (!ontain- 

 ing in the aggregate nine eggs ; I obtained 

 two each of tlie Snowy and White Herons, 

 and twenty-one eggs of our little Green 

 Heron, numbers of which flew up from the 

 water on my approach. 



Not caring for so many eggs of the lat- 

 ter, I left most of them, and after placing 

 the others in my game-bag I went on. The 

 next nest I had the fortune to espy was a 

 Fish Hawk's, containing three eggs , which 

 were a great trophy to me. This nest 

 was in a very high tree, and I was induced 

 to climb it only by the presence of the bird. 

 So far, thought I, so good, but if I could 

 only have the fortune to strike something 

 of a rarer nature, I would be quite well off. 

 Noticing a very beautiful Warbler in a 

 thick bunch of moss and limbs, tliough its 

 peculiar behavior struck me as something 

 extraordinary, I fired. The shot was an 

 extra good one, for it not only killed the 

 Warbler but a huge black snake, a part of 

 which I had taken for vines and bushy twigs. 

 As a natural consequence, the swamp soon 

 resounded with hideous noises ; the flapping 

 of wings, the cries of the Herons and frogs 

 and the splash of lizards and water snakes 

 combining as if bent on making one's hair 

 stand on end. But I was too enthusiastic 



