Chapman had recorded it as arriving at Gainesville
at a date sixteen days later than this.
I did not repeat my visit to Lake Bradford; but, not to give up the
ivory-bill too easily,--and because I must walk somewhere,--I went
again as far as the palmetto scrub. This time, though I still missed the
woodpecker, I was fortunate enough to come upon a turkey. In the
thickest part of the wood, as I turned a corner, there she stood before
me in the middle of the road. She ran along the horse-track for perhaps
a rod, and then disappeared among the palmetto leaves.
Meanwhile, two or three days before, while returning from St. Mark's,
whither I had gone for a day on the river, I had noticed from the car
window a swamp, or baygall, which looked so promising that I went the
very next morning to see what it would yield. I had taken it for a
cypress swamp, but it proved to be composed mainly of oaks; very tall
but rather slender trees, heavily draped with hanging moss and standing
in black water. Among them were the swollen stumps, three or four feet
high, of larger trees which had been felled. I pushed in through the
surrounding shrubbery and bay-trees, and waited for some time, leaning
against one of the larger trunks and listening to the noises, of which
the air of the swamp was full. Great-crested flycatchers, two Acadian
flycatchers, a multitude of blue yellow-backed warblers, and what I
supposed to be some loud-voiced frogs were especially conspicuous in the
concert; but a Carolina wren, a cardinal, a red-eyed vireo, and a
blue-gray gnatcatcher, the last with the merest thread of a voice,
contributed their share to the medley, and once a chickadee struck up
his sweet and gentle strain in the very depths of the swamp--like an
angel singing in hell.
Pages:
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178