GREAT HERON. 
27 
tile sea. The appearance they present to a stranger 
siiigulai-. A front of tall and perfectly straight trunks, 
rising to the height of fifty or sixty feet without a limb, 
and crowded in every direction, their tojis so closely 
"'Oven together as to shut out the day, spreading the 
Sloom of a perpetual twilight below. On a nearer 
^iproach, they are found to rise out of the water, which, 
from the im])rcguation of the fallen leaves and roots ot 
the cedars, is of the colour of brandy. Amidst this 
bottom of congregated springs, the ruins of the former 
forest lie piled in every state of confusion. The roots, 
prostrate logs, and, in many places, the water, are 
covered with green mantling moss, while an under- 
growth of laurel, fifteen or tn enty feet high, intersects 
every opening so completely, as to render a jiassage 
through laborious and harassing beyond description ; 
at every step, you either sink to the knees, clamber over 
fallen timber, srpieeze yourself throngh between the 
stubborn laurels, or plunge to the middle in ponds made 
by the uprooting of Large trees, and which the green 
moss concealed from observation. In calm weather, 
the silence of death reigns in these dreary regions; a 
few interrupted rays of light shoot across the gloom ; 
Rnd unless for the occasional hollow screams of the 
herons, and the melancholy chirping of one or two 
species of sm.ill birds, all is silence, solitude, and 
desolation. When a breeze rises, at first it sighs 
mournfully through the tops ; but as the gale increases, 
he tall mast-like cedars wave like fishing poles, and 
ru )bmg against each other, produce a variety of singular 
noises, that, with the help of a little imagination, 
resemble shrieks, groans, growling of bears, wolves, 
and such like corafortahle music. 
On the tmis of the tallest of these cedars the herons 
construct their nests, ten or fifteen pair sometimes 
Occupying a particular part of the swamp. The nests 
are large, formed ot sticks, and lined with smaller twigs ; 
each occupies the top of a sino^le tree. The eggs are 
generally four, of an ohlong pointed form, larger than 
those of a hen, and of a light greenish blue, withouj. 
