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 legged black-and-white wood ibises, as big as geese, standing motionless at the edge of a small stagnant jungle pool—belated stragglers from the great ibis flocks which had sailed away to the southward as summer merged into fall. None of these interested Jen. His eyes shifted from the lush weeds and grasses and fallen palmetto fronds at his feet where hidden danger might lurk, to the tops of the pines towering above the lower growth; and finally he saw the nest, a bulky castle of sticks, seven feet or more in diameter, fixed some seventy feet above the ground in the crotch of a pine standing almost in the center of a small circular opening in the jungle.

He made his way to the base of the tree, which was rather slender in proportion to its height, studied its trunk and the arrangement of its branches just below the nest, and grinned his satisfaction. No insuperable difficulties stood in the way of his scheme; and he noted with approval too, that the eagles had evidently completed their annual repairs to the nest in preparation for the laying of the two big white eggs, an event which in the Low Country generally takes place in November.

So far so good. Searching the circle of sky visible above his head to make sure that no soaring eagle had seen him, Jen withdrew to the edge of the little opening in which the pine stood, and concealed