86 WILD WINGS 



morning, I was to enjoy and make the most of this remark- 

 able spot. 



The first thing to do was to get settled in our strange 

 quarters, which were in rather uncanny surroundings. Bird 

 Key has something of a history. Many years ago Audubon 

 landed here and studied the great bird colony. During our 

 Civil War the key was used as a Confederate prison-camp. 

 It is perhaps an eighth of a mile long and about a hundred 

 yards wide, a mere sand-bar, pretty well overgrown with bay 

 cedar bushes from three to six feet high. There are also 

 a few small cocoanut palms, some patches of Bermuda grass, 

 and a species of cactus. Better than Key West does this 

 island deserve that name, — a corruption from the Spanish, 

 meaning Bone Key, — for it is a veritable graveyard, not 

 only of soldiers, but of victims of the " Yellow Jack." The 

 key was used for a yellow fever quarantine station during 

 the period of the epidemic of 1899, the visible remains of 

 which, beside the graves with their rude slabs, are several 

 untenanted buildings, in which sulphur and carbolic acid 

 are greatly in evidence. 



Bestowing our goods in an outer entr}^ utilizing a rusty 

 stove in the cook-house, sleeping on a piazza, being careful 

 to boil the water we used from the neglected cistern, we 

 made ourselves comfortable, and found ct)nstant opportunity 

 for bird-study by day and by night. Even from the windows 

 and piazzas of the buildings we could watch the birds sitting 

 on their nests or flying to and fro, and in every waking mo- 

 ment listen to their cries. 



Under three species of birds are included all the regular 

 inhabitants of Bird Key ; in fact two kinds will embrace all 

 but about two dozen individuals. These abounding sorts 

 are the Noddy and the Sooty Tern, both being birds of the 

 tropics, which are found nesting only at this one spot in all 



