8 THE AUD UB ON’ BU Levi 
Our Southern Wildlife Refuges 
By Dr. ALFRED LEWY 
OUR PARTY OF WINTERING migrant bird-lovers consisted of Dr. Leonard B. 
Nice, Mrs. (Margaret Morse) Nice, Mrs. Lewy and myself. We left Chica- 
go on February 19, 1950, in winter’s icy grip, with snow drifts all about, 
the roads glazed over by a recent freezing sleet. For about 100 miles the 
car was piloted cautiously over the slippery roads. At Attica, Indiana, the 
Wabash was in flood, but the main road (41) was passable by driving 
through a few inches of water, and it was about here that we left the icy 
roads behind. Numerous roadside bird and vegetation observations were 
made on the way, but these will be left to another article, and this one 
devoted to the wildlife refuges visited. 
Thanks to Mr. Philip Dumont of the Wildlife Service we were shown 
every courtesy in the various southern refuges. We arrived at Waycross, 
Ga. on February 22. William R. Edwards met us at 8 the next morning 
and piloted us to the Okefenokee Swamp, where we saw Mr. Frederick 
Hebard, whose family at one time had owned part of the swamp. He, Mr. 
Edwards and two of the rangers took us through the waterways, 22 miles 
of them, and a number of the remote lagoons that are not commonly visited 
by the public. The most conspicuous water plant was the golden club or 
neverwet (Orontium aquatica), whose leaves shed water like an oilskin, and 
whose ivory, red and gold spathes project above the water in large groups. 
The white bay, myrtle “titi,” blackberries, Juneberries and some white 
lilies were in bloom, and we recognized some old friends, the cinnamon 
fern, royal fern, pickerelweed, and leatherwood, and tried to distinguish 
the long leaf from the slash pine. We had seen the cabbage palmetto on 
the way, wistaria in bloom and “scrub oaks” on the ridges. The day was 
quite cool for us, cooler than Tennessee. The alligators, a number of which 
we saw, help to keep the swamp open. When not sunning themselves or 
swimming about they retire to their holes under the banks. 
Our bird list follows: Ward’s blue heron; several American egrets; a 
bittern; a number of king rails; 10 Florida cranes; 23 turkey vultures; 
several red-shouldered hawks; 1 broad-winged hawk; 1 Cooper’s hawk; 1 
osprey; 13 mallards; 23 wood ducks; 2 pileated woodpeckers; 1 red-bellied 
woodpecker; 10 purple martins; 2 tree swallows; phoebe; ruby-crowned 
kinglet; 2 Carolina wrens; hermit thrush; many myrtle warblers; 6 robins; 
several kingfishers; towhee; 2 cardinals; and uncounted anhingas or water- 
turkeys, which flew ahead of us along the waterways. A pair of barred 
owls called to each other and finally sat together in a tree. The hawk which 
I identified as a broad-wing was in immature plumage, with which I am 
quite familiar. We obtained no definite statement regarding the rumored 
presence of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the swamp. Some remote parts 
are seldom reached even by rangers. 
After leaving Okefenokee for our next objective, Melbourne and Mer- 
ritt’s Island, we stopped on the way at Orange Park to visit the laboratory 
of primate biology, a center of medical and psychological research, where 
in addition to being shown the important work of the institution, we were 
highly entertained by the baby chimpanzees, whose ardent curiosity regard- 
ing the visitors was strikingly human. 
