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 another, until the air seemed alive with the sound of wings; for the tall blue herons in the roost at the eagle's left were early risers and most of them were off for their fishing grounds in the river marshes and the wet rice fields before day had fairly come. A little later, a whitetail buck followed by two does walked slowly along a winding trail through a bed of reeds almost directly beneath the eagle's perch, and he knew then the meaning of the faint rustling sounds which he had heard in the night. A barred owl, returning from his hunting, winged silently past. Two wood ducks shot by like bullets, heading for the lagoon beside the heron roost. Many squirrels, some of which were much larger and of a darker gray than those of the mountain woods, moved about in the trees on every side. These big iron-gray, white-nosed squirrels he watched with especial interest. He had never seen their like before, but he knew that they were savory meat, and his hunger was growing more and more insistent. Motionless on his perch near the top of the cypress, he awaited his chance.

Close to the foot of a big black gum a long, thickbodied, black-and-red snake emerged from a hole under a root. One of the smaller gray squirrels saw it and ran chattering down the trunk of the gum, lying there head downward, scolding excitedly. Presently, as the snake glided slowly on, the squir-