LETTER RELATIVE TO THE OBTAINING OF SPECIMENS 

 OF FLAMINGOES AND OTHER BIRDS FROM SOUTH 

 FLORIDA. 



BY THE LATE GUSTAVUS WURDEMAN. 



Indian Key, Florida, 



August 27, 1857. 



Sir: It gives me pleasure to be able to inform you that I have lately 

 been quite successful in my researches as it regards the science of 

 ornithology. Many specimens have been procured, and if I have added 

 one item of interest or of what is useful to science I shall consider 

 myself well paid for the labor. 



At the Tortugas are two keys or islands, East Key and Bird Key, 

 which serve as places of resort to the noddies and laying gulls to 

 deposit their eggs and raise their young. They are watched closely 

 at East Key by boatmen, who gather the eggs to carry them to Key 

 West for sale. But at Bird Key the birds are under the special pro- 

 tection of Captain D. P. Woodbury, the officer in charge of construc- 

 tion of the fortifications. I am indebted to the courtesy of this gen- 

 tleman for a visit to the latter Key to procure birds for the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. Upon our approaching the island we were met by 

 the male birds, protesting against our landing. The keys are covered 

 with Bay cedar bushes seven or eight feet in height, interspersed 

 here and there with the cactus, among which some young laying gulls 

 sought refuge. Their eggs are laid on the sand, whilst the noddies 

 lay in nests built from two to six feet from the ground of dried sticks or 

 twigs. Only one egg was found in each noddie's nest, and about two 

 in the laying gull's. Their eggs were said to have been taken some 

 time previous to our visit, and that they lay usually two and three. 

 I picked up several female laying gulls with my hands, and might 

 have caught noddies if I had not been encumbered with the gun, 

 birds, and eggs. No young noddies were seen at this time, which was 

 the last week of June. 



Large numbers of "men-of-war hawks congregate there, and it is said 

 for no good purpose ; they are accused of robbing the gulls of fish and 

 of their eggs, and even of devouring their young, which charges I think 

 are not all well founded. I examined the stomach of a female bird 

 killed by Captain Woodbury, and found it contained a middle sized 

 mullet and a full grown flying fish. Upon my paying a second visit 

 to the same key to get a nest I started at least fifty men-of-war hawks, 



