164 In the Cape Sable Wilderness 
being done, I de- 
scended safely, tak- 
ing with me one of 
the young ibises, 
which I posed for a 
portrait upon the 
ground. 
Along the“‘ Capes”’ 
there are no mud- 
fiats, but deep water 
close in to the fine 
beach of shell-sand. 
Here a chain of lakes 
approaches near the 
coast, and we took 
the opportunity to 
explore them. 
The first was sev- 
eral miles long. We 
poled past several 
little mangrove isl- 
ands, starting some 
brown pelicans and cormorants from 
some of them where they were roost- 
ing on dead stubs. Then we followed a 
narrow channel through the mangrove 
forest into the next lake, white ibises and 
yellow-crowned night herons flying up be- 
fore us to enliven the scene. The next 
lake was also very shallow, with mud- 
flats here and there, on which were scat- 
tered quite a host of birds. Conspicuous 
and noisy were a flock of laughing gulls 
5 oD. 
A Fledgling Wood Ibis. 
Less conspicuous, but more interesting to 
me were the shore-bird ranks both in 
this spot and as seen during the day. 
Right before us on=the flat a splendid 
band of the large black-breast plover, 
and around them a humbler host of sand- 
pipers, ring-necks, dowitchers, and the 
like, were feeding, sedately or nimbly, as 
the case might be. But dwarfing them 
into insignificance by physical contrast 
stood sleepily a pair of splendid white 
Young Wood Ibises in ‘Their Nest, 
— 
