102 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
Herons and 350 American Egrets, while only 15 were Snowy Egrets and 
35, Roseate Spoonbills. 
Vhe rookery from which this group was copied is the only one 
remaining of the many that existed twenty-five years ago. All the others 
have given way to the siaughter wrought by aigrette hunters, this one 
escaping because of its inaccessibility. Cuthbert Rookery is in the 
heart of the mangrove swamp that borders the Everglades at the ex- 
treme southern part of the State. ‘The iarge boat which carried the 
Museum expedition could approach only within seven miles, because of 
the shallowness of the water, and smali boats had to be laboriously 
puiled and pushed through the brackish brown water of the remaining 
distance. 
This is the rookery where Warden Guy Bradiey was shot in the 
summer of 1905, while on duty guarding this last stronghold of the 
herons. ‘The island to-day is unprotected and the birds, rare now, are 
liable to meet extermination in the near future. If the visitor to the 
Museum has previously read either Mr. Chapman’s experiences at 
Cuthbert Rookery as given in “Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist”’ 
or those of Mr. H. K. Job as set forth in his book ‘* Wild Wings,” he will 
see the Cuthbert Rookery Habitat Group with greatly enhanced interest. 
The second of the two groups, the Turkey Buzzard or Turkey Vul- 
ture, that on the east side of the hail, presents a sharp contrast to the 
Cuthbert Rookery group in that it shows but one bird with its young, 
instead of a vast gathering of birds and many nests. Notwithstanding 
this, the Turkey Buzzard group is one of the most satisfactory of the 
whole twenty-five now completed. 
The series of habitat groups of North American birds was designed 
not only to show the haunts and habits of the birds, but also to include in 
the painted backgrounds representations of the land types of American 
scenery. Until the Turkey Buzzard group was completed, the series did 
not show the wooded shores of an Atlantic slope river. ‘The locality 
selected to fill this gap is on the Potomac, ten miles above Washington, 
where the river flows through heavy deciduous forests. 
‘The success of the new group, however, does not lie only in depicting 
in a strong, 
only in setting forth an added sort of American landscape, but also and 
strikingly in the effect of the whole as a work of art. As we stand before 
the group, the scene is very real, quite as though we had climbed the rocky 
simple way the home life of this bird, rare in the North, not 
