of being dull black, glittered with a metallic green and purple iridescence.
The other ibises of the flock acknowledged without question the leadership which Sanute exercised. It was the due reward of his superior physical powers and of his experience and wisdom. Most of the other ibises were young birds, many of them birds of the year, fully grown but not yet attired in fully adult plumage. In the youngest of them the head and neck were not bare but were covered with short downy feathers and the white plumage showed in places a grayish cast. They were the novices of the flock, the raw recruits of the ibis army, beside whom the two-yearand three-year-old birds who made up the bulk of the host felt themselves veterans. In addition to these youngsters of varying degrees of immaturity and inexperience, the flock included a good many older birds, some of them almost as old as Sanute himself. They had joined the brigade after the breeding season was over and had journeyed under Sanute's leadership to the wide lonely sea marshes of the Low Country coast between the palm-fringed barrier islands and the forested mainland, marshes which for many summers had been the old ibis's favorite feeding ground.
It was towards these marshes that Sanute led his feathered troopers from their sleeping place in the cypress swamp. They flew high above the tree-tops
