AMONG THE FLORIDA KEYS 23 



Warblers, and Bobolinks, Even with Florida in sight, those 

 last few miles were often heart-breaking. A number of the 

 little creatures alighted on our spars, or even on deck, and 

 sometimes allowed us to take them in our hands. One such 

 was a male Bobolink in a curious mottled transition stage of 

 plumage. Another Bobolink tried to alight on the end of the 

 boom, but was too much exhausted to gain a footing, and 

 fell into the water, where it lay struggling pitifully, sealed for 

 death. No land-bird which falls into the water at any distance 

 from shore can escape, as its plumage soon becomes soaked 

 and it cannot rise. Thus do multitudes of the little migrants 

 perish. 



Towards evening we ran in to anchor under the lee of 

 Indian Key, where Audubon began his famous entrance into 

 Florida Bay in 1832, coming there on the U. S. Revenue 

 Cutter Marion. Here he landed and was entertained by 

 a customs collector living on the island, and from this base 

 of supplies he made some boating-trips for twenty miles into 

 the shallows of Florida Bay. 



It was with absorbing interest that I gazed upon, and then 

 explored, this beautiful tropical islet. Though I could not 

 exactly trace the great naturalist's literal footsteps upon its 

 fiat coral rock, I could recall his admiration at the beautiful 

 little birds he saw flitting among the bushes — this very time 

 of year it was. Many migrant warblers, thrushes, pigeons, 

 and the like, were happy amid the luxuriant vegetation of 

 cocoanut palms, century-plants, and the thorny thickets, in 

 which last the mother Ground Doves brooded their young 

 in frail nests, as the evening shadows fell. And when the sun 

 rose they were all jubilant with song. We drank milk from 

 the green cocoanuts, rambled about and talked with the old 

 man who, with his wife, represented the human population. 

 The old fellow had never heard of Audubon, and was more 



