58 BULLETIN 135, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



for 75 or 100 feet to the first limb. The nests were placed in the 

 tops of the tallest cypresses and far out on the horizontal limbs; they 

 were practically inaccessible by any means at our disposal, so we had 

 to be content with seeing or hearing the birds fly off. 



Near Cape Sable we were more fortunate, as the absence of cypress 

 swamps in this region compelled the wood ibises to nest in smaller 

 trees. We found a small colony of them breeding on an island in 

 Bear Lake, about 2 miles back from the coast. The birds were very 

 shy, leaving the island when we were about 100 yards away, and not 

 coming within gunshot afterwards. There were about 20 nests in 

 the tops of the red mangroves, from 12 to 15 feet from the ground; 

 they were large nests, about 3 feet in diameter, made of large sticks, 

 very much like the nests of the larger herons, and were completely 

 covered with excrement. All the nests held young birds in various 

 stages of growth. 



Willard Eliot (1892) describes a typical nesting colony of wood 

 ibises, found in southern Florida on March 23, as follows: 



Out in the center of the lake was a small island about 100 feet in diameter, 

 with about 3 feet elevation above the water. There were several large cypress 

 trees besides a thick undergrowth of bay trees. What a sight met our gaze from 

 the shore, the trees on the island were white with the ibises standing close to- 

 gether on the limbs, besides a number of American egrets, Florida cormorants, 

 and anhingas. The ibises were nesting and we could see a number of the birds 

 sitting on their nests. Most of the nests were on the island, but we found two 

 trees near the shore, one had five nests and the other seven. After looking over 

 the field I proceeded to climb the first tree, a large cj'press, the nests were placed 

 50 feet from the ground and were saddled flatly on the top of a horizontal limb. 

 One limb had four nests in a row and were so close together that their edges 

 touched. A ty))ical nest was 18 inches across by 5 inches deep outside, only 

 slightly depressed inside, made of coarse sticks lined with moss and green bay 

 leaves. The eggs were chalky white and nearly always blood stained; the average 

 set is three but we found sets of two and four. 



In the spring of 1913 F. M. Phelps (1914) visited a large rookery 

 of wood ibises in the Big Cypress Swamp of Lee County, Florida, in 

 which he estimated that there were not less than 5.000 pairs of these 

 birds. lie says: 



Mr. Baynard, who visited this rookery in February, 1912, before the cypress 

 trees had leaved out, gave it as his opinion that there were not less than seven or 

 eight thousand nests of the wood ibis here. Tree after tree bore from 12 to 20 or 

 more nests of this species, and m one I counted 32. Years ago before the egrets 

 and spoonbills had become so sadly decimated, for they once bred here in large 

 numbers, it must have been a spectacle so imposing as to defy an adequate descrip- 

 tion. The egrets, wood ibis, and spoonbills all nest high up in the cypress trees, 

 very few under 50 feet and many 75 and 80 feet up. At this season, the middle of 

 March, nearly all the nests contained young. A few of the wood ibis and egrets 

 were still Incubating eggs, but these were more than likely birds that had been 

 broken up elsewhere. 



