in the Peninsula of Florida. 133 



are greatly used up hereabouts, and the Turkeys are rapidly di- 

 minishing in numbers. But there are no settlements near this 

 part of our route, which probably accounts for their presence and 

 their tameness. From Pilatka to Enterprise is 110 miles, and we 

 arrive at 6 p.m. The settlement consists of a good-sized hotel, 

 the property of Captain Brock, and another wooden building, 

 used as a court-house, built on the shore of Lake Monroe, only 

 a few yards from the water. Next morning an alligator, about 

 six feet long, is shot from the 'Darlington,^ while lying on the 

 beach, just in front of the hotel windows. 



March 26. — I walk out at sunrise in search of birds, but as the 

 locality is strange to me, I do not go to any great distance from 

 the house. I see Ospreys, plenty of Blue Jays, Scarlet Tanagers, 

 Quails, Towhe Buntings, White and Green Herons, an Ivory- 

 billed Woodpecker, and a pair of Black-necked Stilts. Next 

 morning I leave, soon after daylight, in an open waggon drawn 

 by two half-starved horses, which makes a weekly trip with the 

 mail to New Smyrna, on the Atlantic coast. The distance is 

 thirty miles of deep sandy road, through scrub and open pine- 

 barrens — as sterile and dreary a country as can well be con- 

 ceived. Our progress is so slow that the journey occupies the 

 whole of the day. 



There are only two or three settlers on the road. Like all 

 the small settlers, or "crackers^^ as they are called in Florida, they 

 own cattle or swine, and lead a nomad life in the " piny woods," 

 building a log-hut here and thei'e, and moving further into the 

 wilds when they " get crowded,'' that is, when any others come 

 within five or six miles of them. One of them told me that 

 there were a " smart " of Bears, Wolves, and Turkeys about. The 

 Wolves had been " bad " on his hogs, and he had killed a good 

 many of them with strychnine. Every '^cracker" has a rifle of 

 course, and uses it. The consequence is, that wherever he 

 locates himself game becomes scarce. It is either killed up, by 

 the perpetual shooting at all seasons, or becomes " scared " and 

 retires further into the forest. 



Near some half-dried lagoons, a few miles from Enterprise, I 

 see some Cranes, either Grus canadensis or G. americana, and in 

 the "piny woods'' there are numerous Bald Eagles. A flock 



