alive with worms; and the whole swamp ablaze with flowers, whose
colours and perfumes attract myriads of insects and butterflies.

Wild creepers flaunt their red and gold from the treetops, and
the bumblebees and humming-birds make common cause in rifling the
honey-laden trumpets. The air around the wild-plum and redhaw
trees is vibrant with the beating wings of millions of wild bees,
and the bee-birds feast to gluttony. The fetid odours of the
swamp draw insects in swarms, and fly-catchers tumble and twist
in air in pursuit of them.

Every hollow tree homes its colony of bats. Snakes sun on the
bushes. The water folk leave trails of shining ripples in their
wake as they cross the lagoons. Turtles waddle clumsily from the
logs. Frogs take graceful leaps from pool to pool. Everything
native to that section of the country-underground, creeping, or
a-wing--can be found in the Limberlost; but above all the birds.

Dainty green warblers nest in its tree-tops, and red-eyed vireos
choose a location below. It is the home of bell-birds, finches,
and thrushes. There are flocks of blackbirds, grackles, and
crows. Jays and catbirds quarrel constantly, and marsh-wrens
keep up never-ending chatter. Orioles swing their pendent purses
from the branches, and with the tanagers picnic on mulberries and
insects. In the evening, night-hawks dart on silent wing;
whippoorwills set up a plaintive cry that they continue far into
the night; and owls revel in moonlight and rich hunting. At
dawn, robins wake the echoes of each new day with the admonition,
"Cheer up! Cheer up!" and a little later big black vultures go
wheeling through cloudland or hang there, like frozen splashes,