CUTHBERT ROOKERY 141 



sometimes at the end of the lake, sometimes at the side 

 masked by over-hanging limbs, which it was necessary to 

 raise to permit the entrance of our boats. if Cutlibert 

 Rookery had not been discovered from the rear, it would 

 l)robably still remain unknown. It is difficult to believe that 

 anyone, unguided, could have reached it over the course we 

 travelled. 



Cuthbert Lake is a mile and a half long. The rookery is 

 on a mangrove-grown island, not over an acre in extent, a 

 mile from the entrance to the lake, but with the sun at our 

 backs as we emerged from the last creek, we distinctly saw 

 pink-plumaged birds flitting against the dark green back- 

 ground of their home. They were the first Spoonbills i had 

 ever seen in Florida, during over twenty years bird study 

 in the state. 1 seemed to have overtaken primitive Florida 

 bird-life where it was making its last stand. 



In the face of a stiff breeze, the boats were urged over 

 the brackish, amber-colored, shallow waters, the hard, rock 

 bottom making each push of the oar yield its full return. 

 But the life of a mangrove rookery does not reveal itself 

 until one is near enough to startle the birds resting or nest- 

 ing on the branches beneath the dense foliage, and it was 

 not until we were within a hundred yards of the island that 

 we could form an idea of the kinds and numbers of its occu- 

 pants. Then, the alarmed birds began to appear and we 

 saw that there were between thirty and forty Spoonbills, a 

 dozen or more Snowy Egrets, three or four hundred Ameri- 

 can Egrets, at least two thousand Louisiana Herons with 

 possibly fifty Little Blue Herons, several hundred White 

 Ibises and a few Cormorants and Water Turkeys. It w^as a 

 fine sight but was soon robbed of its chief attraction by the 

 departure of the Spoonbills and most of the White Herons, 

 which gathered in a gleaming flock in trees on the north 

 shore of the lake. The Louisianas having no commercially 

 valuable plumes to dispose of, retain a limited confidence in 

 man and expressed their fears only by much calling and 



