12 THEA U DU BON Be Deke 
cheese, cookies, et cetera, as he desired, and with a gallon of cold water, 
away we went with my guide at the wheel. 
It was a distance of some fifteen miles to the entrance, then two miles 
or so into the woods before we parked the car. Deep in the woods was 
a short make-shift bridge that I knew my heavily loaded car could never 
cross. My guide got out, shifted some planks about and said, “Now I think 
we'll make it.” The damp stream-bed was but two feet or less below the 
bridge, but even a shorter distance is enough to make plenty of trouble 
should the car go through. In the middle of the bridge down went a back 
wheel and the car stuck! Again the warden got out, shifted planks once 
more and then called out, ‘“We’ll have to back up. You back the car, and 
I’ll direct you where to steer.” Inwardly, I thanked my stars that all winter 
in St. Petersburg I had been forced to back from the garage at the rear 
of the lot, some fifty or sixty feet to the street. Along the way I had to 
avoid an ornamental bush and a tree on the left, the projecting corner of 
the house and two trees on the right. I now fairly trembled, for I had 
to back my loaded car off that shaky bridge, up hill, over big roots of 
trees and keep my eye on the guide so as to avoid crashing into a tree. 
But, by fairly standing on the accelerator, I made the grade. We left the 
car and continued afoot. 
This great southern forest, I was told, covers eighty-two thousand acres 
in the Singer Tract and twenty-five thousand acres in the adjoining Ayers 
Tract. Think of that! One hundred seven thousand acres of magnificent 
southern forest trees. As we walked along, ever alert for the ivory-bill, 
I noticed that huge branches formed an arch far overhead and often 
supported long banners of gray southern moss, which swayed in a gentle 
breeze. Here and there we had to change our direction to avoid pools of 
water almost overgrown with plants and shrubs. 
The day was overcast, and so the woods were dull. We discovered a 
southern pileated woodpecker early on the trip. We also discovered early 
something less pleasant—wood ticks and tiny mosquitoes in hordes. For the 
next three hours, we searched back and. forth for the ivory-bills, but found 
none. We returned to the car for lunch, and removed as many wood ticks 
as we saw on our clothing, and such as crawled out at neck or sleeves, 
all the while keeping up a constant switching to keep off swarms of 
mosquitoes. It was while we ate that my guide discoursed on wood ticks. 
He said there were three species about us and caught one of each kind as 
it descended below his sleeve, pointing out the most pleasing characteristics 
of each. Only one such I remember. One tick had a yellow spot in the 
middle of its back. Oh, yes, another never grew up; it was very tiny 
indeed, but its diminutive size did not hinder it from doing a great work. 
My guide could see, evidently, that I was down hearted, for he said, 
“Some young fellows from the University of Wisconsin were here two 
weeks or so ago, and they searched two whole days before they found one 
ivory-bill.” 
After lunch, we spent three more hours searching. Not an ivory-bill 
could we find! We returned to town, and, upon the warden’s advice, I 
stopped at a drug stroe to buy rubbing alcohol, said to be good to induce 
