i:tT FLORIDA. 97 



mass of tropical flowers, plants, and trees, which he 

 will meet at every foot of the route, require to appre- 

 ciate them not ouly all the books which liave been 

 written specially on this portion of our country, but 

 a well selected assortment of popular botanical and 

 conchological w^orks, and ichthyological also, if he 

 is not up in that subject. 



There is no shooting and little fishing directly 

 around Cedar Keys, where the wayfarer doth very 

 much abound, but some twenty miles south Colonel 

 Wingate keeps a s23ortsman's hotel, and he can en- 

 sure the land traveller a good time, without separa- 

 tion from his family for an extended period. His 

 place is at Gulf Hammock, and to reach it, the 

 sportsman leaves the cars at the station just short 

 of Cedar Keys. From his house parties are made 

 up to explore the waters further south with the aid 

 of boats and guides. I mention his place because 

 he is well known to many of my Northern readers. 



I have spoken mostly of the coast shooting, be- 

 cause it was what we mainly had in view in our 

 trip, but it must not be imagined that it is the only 

 kind of sport to be had. We took no dogs, but 

 meeting a party of Northern sportsmen at Gaines- 

 ville, we tried the quaiL The sport was magnifi- 

 cent, with a single drawback. There was no trouble 

 in killing seventy-five birds to three guns, and sev- 

 eral times the bag exceeded a hundred, once reach- 

 ing a hundred and six ; but the weather was so hot 

 that it did not seem like quail shooting, and the 

 true exhilaration of the sport, as we Northerners 



