IMMENSE NUMBERS OF WILD FOWL. 423 



mocks, and carried us out of doors. Beyond the 

 point of the Utile dock was a long sand-bank, cover- 

 ed with immense flocks of these birds. Our host 

 could not go with us till he had examined his fish- 

 ing nets, and Dimas had to take the horses to water, 

 but we pushed off with our Indian to set the canoe. 

 Very soon we found that he was not familiar with 

 the place, or with the management of a canoe, and, 

 what was worse, we could not understand a word he 

 said. Below us the shore formed a large bay, with 

 the Punta de Arenas, or Point of Sand, projecting * 

 toward us, bordered down to the water's edge with 

 trees, and all over the bay were sand-banks, barely 

 appearing above water, and covered with wild fowl 

 of every description known, in numbers almost ex- 

 ceeding the powers of conception. In recurring to 

 them afterward, Doctor Cabot enumerated of ducks, 

 the mallard, pin-tail, blooming teal, widgeon, and 

 gadwall ; of bitterns, the American bittern, least bit- 

 tern, great and lesser egret, blue crane, great blue 

 heron, Louisiana heron, night heron, two kinds of 

 rail, one clapper rail, white ibis, willets, snipes, red- 

 breasted snipe, least snipe, semi-palmated sandpi- 

 per, black-breasted plover, marble godwit, long-bill- 

 ed curlew, osprey or fish-hawk, black hawk, and oth- 

 er smaller birds, of which we took no note, and all 

 together, with their brilhant plumage and varied 

 notes, forming, as we passed among them, an anima- 

 ted and exciting scene, but it was no field for sport- 

 ing. It would have been slaughter to shoot among 



