18G CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



May 29: In walking through the island this morning I noticed: barn 

 swallow, sooty tern, least tern, a single pair of the latter nesting at the south 

 end of the island, wood pewee, boboUnk, and a night hawk. 



May 30 : In a walk through the island this morning I noticed a gray kingbird, 

 sooty tern, a few barn swallows, man-of-war bird, least tern, and a wood pewee. 

 In the afternoon we i)aid a visit to Bush Key. Here we found about 500 

 least terns, many of them nesting. There are really two colonies on this key- 

 one is on what used to be called Long Key, which is the old nesting site, and is 

 now united with Bush Key at low tide; the smaller colony is at the farther end 

 of Bush Key. On these keys we also saw the following birds: sooty tern, 

 noddy tern, royal tern, brown pelican, man-of-war bird, Ward's heron, laughing 

 gull, and several turnstones. The laughing gull was heckling the Ward's heron 

 away from the shore. I strongly suspect that the laughing gulls hover around 

 the rookery and plunder the least-tern nests, for they followed us closely in our 

 wanderings. Most of the least tern nests contained only a single egg. 



We next visited East Key, but found only a few least terns present. 



On our way back we saw a barn-swallow, about half a mile off Middle Key. 



On the buoys about Bird Key three boobies and a couple of royal terns 

 were present, while the key itself contained the usual flock of noddy and 

 sooty terns and quite a number of man-of-war birds. 



In the evening I paid a visit to the tall dead sisal stalk in the center of 

 the island with a hope of seeing the owl which produced the pellet I found 

 the other day, and although I had been told by the light-house keeper that 

 he had seen a hawk on the sisal stalk early in the evening, I was unable to find 

 either bird. Subsequent efforts were also unsuccessful. 



May 31 : Visited Bird Key after breakfast. The noddy and sooty terns 

 seemed to be just about as abundant as they were a year ago, but the man- 

 of-war birds have increased greatly in number. There must be at least 300 

 present. Mr. Betel, the present warden, is doing excellent work in caring 

 for this colony. He has been planting some bay cedars to restore those 

 which were killed by the hurricane. A trip to the south end of Loggerhead 

 Key disclosed the remains of a female bobolink, probably eaten by the owl. 



June 1: Revisited Bird Key, but nothing new was added. The feathers 

 of a yellow-billed cuckoo were found near the place where the bobolink was 

 killed night before last; probably also killed by the owl. 



June 2: The barn swallow and the wood pewee have disappeared. 



June 3: In a walk through Loggerhead Key I noticed the least tern, a 

 few sooties and noddies, and man-of-war birds, but no smaller birds. 



June 4: We left Tortugas for Key West early this morning and in passing 

 we noticed the usual group of noddies and sooties and man-of-war birds, some 

 boobies and royal terns on the stakes, and a colony of least terns flying 

 over Bush Key. We arrived at Boca Grande Key early in the afternoon, 

 and during a hasty visit saw only a few brown pehcans and a couple of 



royal terns. • i t oo 



The following morning I sailed for Cuba, returning to Florida on June 23. 

 The accommodation train from Key West for Miami is very slow and gives 

 good opportunity to take detailed observations in passing over the elevated 

 fills and viaducts intervening between Key V/est and the mainland. The 

 train leaves Key West about 6*^ 30™ in the morning and arrives at Miami 

 about 2'' 30"' in the afternoon. I shall simply mention the name of the key and 

 cite the birds seen on each one. 



