ALONG THE STREAM 243 



for near a minute, but it is immediately forced 

 out again through his mouth and nostrils with a 

 loud noise, brandishing his tail in air, and the 

 vapor ascending from his nostrils like smoke. At 

 other times, when swollen to an extent ready to 

 burst, his head and tail lifted up, he spins or twirls 

 round on the surface of the water." 



I know of nothing more fascinating than some 

 of these lower stream reaches, and the effect as one 

 drifts silently along them by moonlight is inde- 

 scribable. It is all so uncanny it seems more like 

 some scene of middle geological age than of the 

 present, and I never visit one of these estuaries 

 without half expecting to see Plesiosauri crawling 

 about on the mud or Pterodactyls hanging from 

 the branches. 



There is generally a stretch of brackish prairie 

 just inside the outer screen of mangrove and this 

 is more or less covered by saw grass. The banks 

 of the stream here may be bordered with cattails 

 {Typha angustifoUa) and the Jussiaa peruviana, 

 the latter ranging from Peru northward through- 

 out the Florida peninsula. It grows along the 

 muddy banks of the estuaries and bears handsome 

 yellow flowers, sometimes rooting in the muck or 



