FLORIDA: THE GULF COAST 169 



Scott saw several roosting in a tree that overhung 

 the house. Until they flew she thought a neigh- 

 bor's turkeys had strayed, then suddenly remem- 

 bering that none were domesticated here, she 

 stepped quickly inside for a gun, — but the birds 

 were out of sight. She has never ceased to 

 mourn the lost chance. 



The country here was very different from that 

 we had left. Instead of a low-lying shore bounded 

 by great sedge-grass swamps, the banks of the 

 mainland were abrupt, and rose frequently to some 

 thirty or forty feet above the level of the adjacent 

 waters. The pine woods reached almost to the 

 shore, except where they were interrupted by 

 what were known as "shell hammocks," — small 

 areas covered with palmettos and growths of 

 deciduous trees. There were no groups of tiny 

 islands such as characterized the Withlacoochee, 

 but a vast bay stretched up and down the coast, 

 shut out from the Gulf by a succession of long, 

 narrow, low-lying sand islands, whose outside 

 shores were the real sea beaches of this part of 

 Florida. The water in these bays was rarely more 

 than ten feet in depth, and generally it was much 

 shoaler. In fact, the whole sea floor of this entire 

 region is very flat, the four-fathom line in the 

 Gulf as marked on the coast charts being gen- 

 erally out of sight of land. 



The water of the bay, except during periods of 



