snakes were somehow missing (a loss not irreparable), and so were the
purple gallinules; for them, the boy thought, it was still rather early
in the season, although he had killed one a few days before, and for
proof had brought me a wing. But as we were skirting along the shore I
suddenly called "Hist!" An alligator lay on the bank just before us. The
boy turned his head, and instantly was all excitement. It was a big
fellow, he said,--one of three big ones that inhabited the creek. He
would get him this time. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Oh yes, I'll blow the
top of his head off." He was loaded for gallinules, and I, being no
sportsman, and never having seen an alligator before, was some shades
less confident. But it was his game, and I left him to his way. He
pulled the boat noiselessly against the bank in the shelter of tall
reeds, put down the oars, with which he could almost have touched the
alligator, and took up his gun. At that moment the creature got wind of
us, and slipped incontinently into the water, not a little to my relief.
One live alligator is worth a dozen dead ones, to my thinking. He showed
his back above the surface of the stream for a moment shortly afterward,
and then disappeared for good.

Ornithologically, the creek was a disappointment. We pushed into one bay
after another, among the dense "bonnets,"--huge leaves of the common
yellow pond lily,--but found nothing that I had not seen before. Here
and there a Florida gallinule put up its head among the leaves, or took
flight as we pressed too closely upon it; but I saw them to no
advantage, and with a single exception they were dumb. One bird, as it
dashed into the rushes, uttered two or three cries that sounded
familiar. The Florida gallinule is in general pretty silent, I think;
but he has a noisy season; then he is indeed noisy enough. A swamp
containing a single pair might be supposed to be populous with barn-yard
fowls, the fellow keeps up such a clatter: now loud and terror-stricken,