Young White Ibises and Louisiana Herons. 
or so of large rosy-pink birds quietly 
perched upon the trees just opposite us 
across the barrier, the roseate spoonbills 
on their nesting-ground. What a spec- 
tacle—the dark green mangrove foliage 
dotted with ibises of dazzling whiteness, 
“pink curlews” (the local name), and 
blue-tinted herons! I felt that I had here 
reached the high-water mark of spectacu- 
lar sights in the bird-world. Wherever 
I may penetrate in future wanderings, I 
never hope to see anything to surpass, or 
perhaps to equal, that upon which I then 
gazed. This is thelast remnant and the 
last place of refuge of hosts of innocent, 
exquisite creatures slaughtered for a bru- 
tal millinery folly. 
Climbing a tree, to get above the 
undergrowth, I screwed my 4 x 5 cam- 
era to a limb and proceeded to take pic- 
tures of the surrounding birds, with tele- 
photo attachment and with long-focus 
single lens. Then, with this camera and 
the 5 x7, I followed along the bayou, hop- 
ing to find some way to cross. Every 
time I tumbled into a mud-hole or 
snapped a twig, there was wild confusion. 
The air was white with ibises. 
The day was now nearly gone, and yet 
we had not crossed the bayou into the 
main part of the rookery. But at length 
we reached a place where a small tree had 
fallen across, and managed to reach the 
other shore. The very first nest which I 
examined, about five feet from the ground, 
in a crotch, contained four young snowy 
herons. While I was standing there, the 
queenly mother, exquisite with her back- 
load of elegant drooping “aigrette” 
plumes, flew down and fed her white- 
robed princely children. About twenty- 
five feet up the next tree was another nest 
of twigs in a fork of the main trunk. A 
sort of rosy flush around its edge led me 
to climb to it, and I gazed upon three 
young roseate spoonbills. They were, 
perhaps, one-third grown, and were clad 
in a rosy-pink down, through which feath- 
ers of the same hue, especially on the 
wings, were sprouting. 
My plates were nearly all used up, and 
I tried to expend the few remaining ones 
judiciously amongst this mass of wonder- 
ful material. Then the guide fairly 
dragged me back, for it was very necessary 
to be out of the morass before sun-down. 
