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From his “Travels in the Carolinas, Florida,” &c.

=_254._= THE WOOD PELICAN OF FLORIDA.

This solitary bird does not associate in flocks, but is generally seen alone, commonly near the banks of great rivers, in vast marshes or meadows, especially such as are caused by inundations, and also in the vast deserted rice plantations:  he stands alone on the topmost limb of tall dead cypress trees, his neck contracted or drawn in upon his shoulders, and beak resting like a long scythe upon his breast:  in this pensive posture and solitary situation, it looks extremely grave, sorrowful, and melancholy, as if in the deepest thought.

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=_Alexander Wilson, 1766-1813._= (Manual, p. 504.)

From the “American Ornithology.”

=_255._= NEST OF THE RED-HEADED WOODPECKER.

Notwithstanding the care which this bird, in common with the rest of its genus, takes to place its young beyond the reach of enemies, within the hollows of trees, yet there is one deadly foe, against whose depredations neither the height of the tree nor the depth of the cavity is the least security.  This is the blade snake, who frequently glides up the trunk of the tree, and, like a skulking savage, enters the woodpecker’s peaceful apartment, devours the eggs or helpless young, in spite of the cries and flutterings of the parents, and if the place be large enough, coils himself up in the spot they occupied, where he will sometimes remain for several days.  The eager school-boy, after hazarding his neck to reach the woodpecker’s hole, at the triumphant moment when he thinks the nestlings his own, and strips his arm, launching it down into the cavity, and grasping what he conceives to be the callow young, starts with horror at the sight of a hideous snake, and almost drops from his giddy pinnacle, retreating down the tree with terror and precipitation.  Several adventures of this kind have come to my knowledge; and one of them was attended with serious consequences, where both snake and boy fell to the ground, and a broken thigh, and long confinement, cured the adventurer completely of his ambition for robbing woodpeckers’ nests.

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=_256._= THE WHITE-HEADED, OR BALD, EAGLE.

Elevated on the high dead limb of some gigantic tree that commands a wide view of the neighboring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below,—­the snow-white Gulls slowly winnowing the air; the busy Tringoe coursing along the sands; trains of Ducks streaming over the surface; silent and watchful Cranes, intent and wading; clamorous crows; and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature.  High over all these hovers one, whose action instantly arrests his whole attention.