AMONG THE FLORIDA KEYS 
23 
Warblers, and Bobolinks. Even with Florida in sight, those 
last few miles were often heart-breaking. A number of the 
little creatures alighted on our spars, or even on deck, and 
sometimes allowed us to take them in our hands. One such 
was a male Bobolink in a curious mottled transition stage of 
plumage. Another Bobolink tried to alight on the end of the 
boom, but was too much exhausted to gain a footing, and 
fell into the water, where it lay struggling pitifully, sealed for 
death. No land-bird which falls into the water at any distance 
from shore can escape, as its plumage soon becomes soaked 
and it cannot rise. Thus do multitudes of the little migrants 
perish. 
Towards evening we ran in to anchor under the lee of 
Indian Key, where Audubon began his famous entrance into 
Florida Bay in 1832, coming there on the LT. S. Revenue 
Cutter Marion. Here he landed and was entertained by 
a customs collector living on the island, and from this base 
of supplies he made some boating-trips for twenty miles into 
the shallows of Florida Bay. 
It was with absorbing interest that I gazed upon, and then 
explored, this beautiful tropical islet. Though I could not 
exactly trace the great naturalist’s literal footsteps upon its 
flat coral rock, I could recall his admiration at the Ijeautiful 
little birds he saw flitting among the bushes — this verv time 
of year it was. Many migrant warblers, thrushes, pigeons, 
and the like, were happy amid the luxuriant vegetation of 
cocoanut palms, century-plants, and the thorny thickets, in 
which last the mother Ground Doves brooded their young 
in frail nests, as the evening shadows fell. And when the sun 
rose they were all jubilant with song. We drank milk from 
the green cocoanuts, rambled about and talked with the old 
man who, with his wife, represented the human population. 
The old fellow had never heard of Audubon, and was more 
