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 spread his wide wings, and launched forward from his perch in the tallest of the cypresses. With a noisy flapping of great pinions which swayed and rocked the moss-pennants trailing from every branch, the whole ibis host, first in twos and threes, then in tens and twenties, took to the air. Their necks curving downward, their legs dangling, their ample wings laboring mightily, they lifted themselves in narrow circles through the mist—a whirling confusion of great white shapes dimly visible in the pallid light, passing and repassing like phantoms against the gray background of the curtained trees, spiraling upward to clear the cypress-tops.

For some minutes after the last of them had risen above the trees the whole flock swung in ever-widening circles above the forest, mounting steadily towards the higher level where the leader sailed back and forth, peering down with frequent twists and turns of his big, queer-looking head as though studying the maneuvers of his followers. Then, satisfied that the army was ready to begin its aërial march, he turned his long bill southeastward towards the distant sea marshes behind the barrier islands.

Very wise with the wisdom of many summers was Sanute, leader of the wood ibis host—very wise and very old. But it was not with him as with men. He had not paid in physical vigor for the knowledge which the years had brought. Despite