116 FLORIDA BIRD-LIFE 



to make one forget the past in the attractions of the present. 

 My blind was qnickly erected on the islet, from which I could 

 observe the Water Turkeys on a neighboring islet, and soon 

 the nearly grown Ward's Herons, in a nest just above my 

 head, were chanting their croaking food-call ; the Water 

 Turkeys, with rattling, rasping notes, came back to their 

 nests; Barred Owls called from the gloom of the cypresses 

 and out in the pines Sandhill Cranes were trumpeting. 

 From the forest of bonnet leaves and roots, bull-frogs 

 grunted and alligators whined; a sucker and a great soft- 

 shelled turtle came to the surface to investigate a bit of 

 orange-peel which had fallen into the water at my feet, and 

 everywhere, in the bonnets, on the islets and in the bushes, 

 there were moccasins. One crawled out to sun himself on the 

 islet which was barely large enough for me, and I discov- 

 ered him coiled at exactly (measured later!) three feet and 

 six inches from my back. Doubtless he would have agreed 

 to remain on his side if I had consented to stay on mine, but 

 it seemed to me that an island six feet in diameter was not 

 large enough for us both, and he, poor fellow, being the 

 smaller and having no gun, was forced to leave — in two 

 pieces. 



About one hundred pairs of Water Turkeys were breed- 

 ing on the islets in this secluded place; their remarkably 

 well-made nests being in the bushes and trees from three or 

 four, to fifteen or twenty feet above the water ; in some 

 instances a single islet held as many as seven. 



The nests contained eggs in various stages of incubation, 

 and young up to the downy stage. The young of the same 

 nest, as I have observed on previous occasions, were of dif- 

 ferent ages and varied greatly in size, one nest holding 

 young several days old and fresh eggs. 



The young raise their long, slender, tremulous necks 

 above the nest and utter incessantly a twittering peep; 

 while the expanded hyoids so increase its size that the head 

 appears to be placed on the neck upside down. They secure 



