Florida and Some Snakes 233 



Near-by Lake Ariguanabo was, as it always is during the 

 dry season, a great sea of "bonnets" or imlangiietas as these 

 leaves are called in Spanish. I like the name "bonnet," for 

 it is descriptive of those stiff, curled-up, water-lily leaves 

 in which little yellow rails frequently hide and over which 

 the sharp-eyed grackles continuously creep about seeking 

 out the bonnet worms which bore into the stems. The lake 

 is variable in size, covering several hundred acres during 

 the rainy season. 



Native hunters appeared when the grapevine telegraph 

 got working and I asked them about getting for us speci- 

 mens of the pato agostero, as the masked duck is locally 

 named. They replied that this was easy but that shooting 

 would have to be done at dawn when there was no breeze 

 to move the bonnets. This mystified us a bit at first but we 

 found afterwards that the natives push a little cockleshell 

 about, standing up and watching the bonnets. When they 

 surprise a duck it dives, swims off with just its bill stuck 

 up above the surface of the water, and, of course, rustling 

 the bonnets a bit as it swims away. Now the extraordinary 

 fact is that these men are never fooled by turtles, which, 

 when disturbed, rush off stirring the bonnets also, for the 

 men know the rate of speed of turtle and duck. By shooting 

 just ahead of the quaking leaves moved by the ducks, they 

 get pretty nearly every individual they shoot at. They soon 

 brought us all the ducks that Percy wanted. 



Ruddy ducks were present in the same lake and, of 

 course were often killed as well as the masked ducks. Their 

 habits are very similar. When either of these birds came to 

 rest it was almost always among the malanguetas. The 

 name agostero or August duck is derived from a reputed 



