wths of
water plants and hanging vines. You clamber over huge fallen logs damp
with rank vegetation, and wade through a maze of cypress "knees."
Unwittingly, you are sure to gather on your clothing a colony of
ravenous ticks from some swaying branch. Redbugs bent on mischief
scramble up on you by the score and bury themselves in your skin, while
a cloud of mosquitoes waves behind you like a veil. In the sombre
shadows through which you move you have a feeling that there are many
unseen things that crawl and glide and fly, and a creepy feeling about
the edges of your scalp becomes a familiar sensation. Once we came
upon the trail of a bear and found the going easier when we waded on
hands and knees through the opening its body had made.

In the more open places the water was completely {207} covered with
floating plants that Greene called "wild lettuce." These appeared to
be uniform in size, and presented an absolutely level surface except in
a few places where slight elevations indicated the presence of
inquisitive alligators, whose gray eyes we knew were watching our
movements through the lettuce leaves.

Although the swamp was unpleasant under foot, we had but to raise our
eyes to behold a world of beauty. The purple blossoms of air plants,
and the delicate petals of other orchids greeted us everywhere. From
the boughs overhead long streamers of gray Spanish moss waved and
beckoned in the breeze. Still higher, on gaunt branches of giant
cypresses a hundred feet above our heads, great, grotesque Wood Ibises
were standing on their nests, or taking flight for their feeding
grounds a dozen miles southward.

[Illustration: The Grotesque Wood Ibis]

We were now fairly in the midst of an immense bird city, and some of
the inhabitants were veritable giants in the bird world. The body of a
Wood Ibis {209} is about the size of a Turkey hen. Its long, bare neck
terminates in a most remarkable fashion, for the top of the head is not
only innocent of feathers but also destitute of skin--"Flintheads," the
people call the bird. Its bill is nearly ten inches long, slightly
curved and very massive. Woe to the unlucky fish or luckless rat upon
whom a blow falls from the Flinthead's heavy beak! There were probably
one hundred thousand of these birds inhabiting Corkscrew Rookery at the
time of my visit. There were also large colonies of the smaller White
Ibis and several varieties of Heron. Eight of the almost extinct