GREAT HERON. 
29 
are generally in the gloomy solitudes of the tallest cedar swamps, 
where, if unmolested, they continue annually to breed for many 
years. These swamps are from half a mile to a mile in breadth, 
and sometimes five or six in length, and appear as if they occupied 
the former channel of some choked up river, stream, lake, or arm 
of the sea. The appearance they present to a stranger is singu- 
lar : 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 tops so closely woven together as to shut out the 
day, spreading the gloom of a perpetual twilight below. On a 
nearer approach they are found to rise out of the watei*, which, 
from the impregnation of the fallen leaves, and roots of the cedars, 
is of the color 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 twenty feet high, intersects every open- 
ing so completely, as to render a passage through laborious and 
harassing beyond description : at every step you either sink to the 
knees, clamber over fallen timber, squeeze yourself through be- 
tween the stubborn laurels, or plunge to the middle in ponds made 
by the uprooting of large trees, and which the 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 
ffloom ; and unless for the occasional hollow screams of the Herons, 
and the melancholy chirping of one or two species of small birds, 
all is silence, solitude and desolation. When a breeze rises, at first 
it sighs mournfully through the tops ; but as the gale inci’eases, 
the tall mast-like cedars wave like fishing-poles, and rubbing 
against each other, produce a variety of singular noises, that, with 
the help of a little imagination, resemble shrieks, groans, or the 
growling of beasts of prey. 
VOL. VIII. 
H 
