342 IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER. 



siana, and Mississippi, are, however, the most favourite resorts of this 

 bird, and in those States it constantly resides, breeds, and passes a life of 

 peaceful enjoyment, finding a profusion of food in all the deep, dark, and 

 gloomy swamps dispersed throughout them..,-_ 



I wish, kind reader, it were in my power to present to your mind's 

 eye the favourite resort of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Would that I 

 could describe the extent of those deep morasses, overshadowed by millions 

 of gigantic dark cypresses, spreading their sturdy moss-covered branches, 

 as if to admonish intruding man to pause and reflect on the many diffi- 

 culties which he must encounter, should he persist in venturing farther 

 into their almost inaccessible recesses, extending for miles before him, 

 where he should be interrupted by huge projecting branches, here and 

 there the massy trunk of a fallen and decaying tree, and thousands of 

 creeping and twining plants of numberless species ! Would that I could 

 represent to you the dangerous nature of the ground, its oozing, spongy, 

 and miry disposition, although covered with a beautiful but treacherous 

 carpeting, composed of the richest mosses, flags, and water-lilies, no soon- 

 er receiving the pressure of the foot than it yields and endangers the very 

 life of the adventurer, whilst here and there, as he approaches an open- 

 ing, that proves merely a lake of black muddy water, his ear is assailed 

 by the dismal croaking of innumerable frogs, the hissing of serpents, or 

 the bellowing of alligators ! Would that I could give you an idea of the 

 sultry pestiferous atmosphere that nearly suffocates the intruder during 

 the meridian heat of our dogdays, in those gloomy and horrible swamps ! 

 But the attempt to picture these scenes would be vain. Nothing short of 

 ocular demonstration can impress any adequate idea of them. 



How often, kind reader, have I thought of the difference of the tasks 

 imposed on different minds, when, travelhng in countries far distant from 

 those where birds of this species and others as difficult to be procured are 

 now and then offered for sale in the form of dried skins, I have heard the 

 amateur or closet-naturahst express his astonishment that half-a-crown 

 was asked by the person who had perhaps followed the bird when alive 

 over miles of such swamps, and after procuring it, had prepared its skin 

 in the best manner, and carried it to a market thousands of miles distant 

 from the spot where he had obtained it. I must say, that it has at least 

 grieved me as much as when I have heard some idle fop complain of the 

 poverty of the Gallery of the Louvre, where he had paid nothing, or when 

 I have listened to the same infatuated idler lamenting the loss of his shil- 



