GREAT HERON. 
27 
of tbe sea. The appearance they present to a stranger 
is singular. 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 water, which, 
from the impregnation of the fallen leaves and roots of 
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 twenty feet high, intersects 
every opening 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 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 ; 
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 increases, 
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, growling of bears, wolves, 
and such like comfortable music. 
On the tops 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 of sticks, and lined with smaller twigs ; 
each occupies the top of a single tree. The eggs are 
generally four, of an oblong pointed form, larger than 
those of a hen, and of a light greenish blue, without 
